Page 273 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

cat. 179
Ando Hiroshige,
Dawn in Shtnagcaua, from
Fifty-three Stations of
the Tôkaidô, 1833 -1834,
color woodblock print,
approx. 26 x 38 (ioV4 x 15),
Nippon Express, Co.,
Ltd., Tokyo

27 2

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is military glory." Basho may have traveled with his physical eyes on the road, but his inner eyes
were glued on the landscape of the intellect. Such richly learned allusions clearly assume that no un-
educated person is capable of true travel. 29
While Basho strove for the appearance of spontaneity, it is obvious that he crafted his record
of his journey to the northern provinces with painstaking care. When the diary of his companion,
Sora, came to light a number of years ago, readers were shocked to discover just how extensive was
the license Basho had taken with the "facts." He altered dates and places in the service of his art.

In re-creating the historical journeys of his literary predecessors, Basho strove to leave a legacy
that would become a part of the past-present-future continuum, just as Lady Nijó expressed the desire
to replicate Saigyó's travels and leave a record that would outlive her. Basho would have been pleased
to know that Basho landmarks were erected all over the northern provinces (and all over Japan for
that matter). He would have been delighted that someone like Buson came along to refurbish his rustic
hut, retrace his journey, distribute his portrait, and illustrate his travel diaries.
One cannot but wonder, however, what Basho would have made of Buson's reworking of Narrow
Road to the Deep North (cat. 168). By choosing to reproduce certain scenes visually in addition to present-
ing them verbally in the text, Buson subverted the melancholy mood of Bashó's original. The choice of
images invests the diary with a lightness (the aesthetic value of karumi) that counteracts the sorrow
suffusing Bashó's narrative. Buson foregrounds the unexceptional: the little girl Kasane chasing Bashó's
horse at Nasuno (1.2); the blind biwa player in the inn at Suematsuyama (1.5); the disagreeable (but
probably all too common) exchange with the guards at the Barrier Gate at Shitomae (1.8); the strapping
country guide at the dreaded Natagiri Pass (2.1); the prostitutes at Ichifuri (2.4); and the meeting with