Okute

At the lower center of the picture, two people carrying large bundles of brushwood climb a narrow, gouged-out road. At left rises a large mountain showing reddish-brown rock, with pines spreading their branches at its summit. At right rear gentle hills continue, with slender pines standing here and there.

The mountains and hills are broadly painted in a single blue-green, with fine dots indicating grass, making a simple and bold picture. The figures are drawn small, and the pale yellow of the sky and the indigo of the horizon convey the breadth of the road over the mountains.

Okute was a post town in the mountains of Mino, and its title is written with different characters. The road from Oi to Okute is a rolling section called the Thirteen Passes, said to have been a hard stretch for travelers. One honjin and one waki-honjin were placed there, serving as a resting place for travelers on the mountain road.

This is by Hiroshige. Without drawing the rows of houses of the post town, the composition expresses the mountain post town with only a rocky mountain and road, and the shape of the mountain occupying most of the picture leaves a strong impression. From the figures of local people carrying brushwood, the lives of those who live in the mountains, not only travelers, come across.