HIROSHIGE

Hiroshige’s great talent developed in the 1830s. In 1832 he made a trip between Edo and Kyōto along the famed highway called the Tōkaidō; he stayed at the 53 overnight stations along the road and made numerous sketches of everything he saw. He published a series of 55 landscape prints titled Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō—one for each station, as well as the beginning of the highway and the arrival in Kyōto. The success of this series was immediate and made Hiroshige one of the most popular ukiyo-e artists of all time. He made numerous other journeys within Japan and issued such series of prints as Famous Places in KyōtoEight Views of, Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaidō  and One Hundred Views of Edo (1856–58). He repeatedly executed new designs of the 53 Tokaido views in which he employed his unused sketches of previous years.

It has been estimated that Hiroshige created more than 5,000 prints and that as many as 10,000 copies were made from some of his woodblocks.Hokusai  Hiroshige’s early contemporary, was the innovator of the pure landscape print. Hiroshige, who followed him, was a less-striking artistic personality but frequently achieved equivalent masterpieces in his own calm manner. Possessing the ability to reduce the pictured scene to a few simple, highly decorative elements, Hiroshige captured the very essence of what he saw and turned it into a highly effective composition. There was in his work a human touch that no artist of the school had heretofore achieved; his pictures revealed a beauty that seemed somehow tangible and intimate. Snow, rain, mist, and moonlight scenes compose some of his most poetic masterpieces.

Hiroshige’s life was his work, with neither peaks nor valleys. He leaves the impression of a largely self-taught artist who limited himself to the devices and capacity of his own nature.