Utagawa Hiroshige
Utagawa Hiroshige was a Japanese artist of the ukiyo-e school who lived from 1797 to 1858 during the Edo Period of Japan. He is most remembered for his various landscape series with his poetic lines and muted colors.
Hiroshige was born into a lower ranking samurai class. When he grew up, he assumed his father’s role as part of the shogunal fire-fighters, called the jōbikeshi. These fighters served to protect the castle in Edo. Hiroshige earned a meager living. He initially took up art on the side to supplement his income. In 1811, Hiroshige trained under the art ukiyo-e master, Utagawa Toyohiro. He did quite well creating color landscape woodblock prints.
In 1818, Hiroshige had his first work published. The Japanese artist, Katsushika Hokusai, and his Mount Fuji art series heavily influenced Hiroshige and his subject choice. As well as the Chinese Kanō school of art. Hiroshige went on to produce over 8,000 works of art. Hiroshige lived in Edo his entire life and most of the art he created depicted that area of Japan. In 1603, Edo became the capital of Japan and by the 18th century, over 1 million people lived there. The adoption of the woodblock technique made art accessible to a wider audience. This resulted in the cultural explosion of art that happened at that time. He was never paid very well for his work and remained relatively poor for most of his life.
Hiroshige decided to make his most famous series, titled ‘One Hundred Famous Views of Edo’, soon after Japan opened up to the west in 1853 and 1854. Unfortunately, Hiroshige died shortly after in 1858 during a cholera epidemic. He was just 61 years old. Many critics believe Hiroshige to be the last great artist of the ukiyo-e school. Hiroshige’s landscape series were a strong influence on many western artists, particularly the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists of Western Europe.
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