People : Ando Hiroshige
Wednesday, November 10, 2004 Posted: 06:38 PM JST [PHOTOS]
Ukiyoe Artist,
1797-1858
Inspired by the expressive Landscape Prints of Hokusai, a young Ando Hiroshige decided to become an artist and in 1811 became a student of Ukiyoe master Utagawa Toyohiro.
Hiroshige's debut series Famous Places in the Eastern Capital by Ichiyusai was published 1831. Only two years later he published his famous Fifty-Three Stages of the Tokaido, made from sketches during a trip down the Edo-Kyoto route in 1832.
Thanks to this series Hiroshige almost immediately overshadowed Hokusai as the most celebrated Landscape Print artist of the day. The Tokaido prints became Hiroshige's trademark. Until his death in 1858, he finished thirteen separate series of scenes of the Tokaido.
Hiroshige's first trip down the Tokaido route turned out to be amazingly productive; he made many hundreds of sketches on which he later based several other series: Famous Spots in Kyoto, Scenes at Famous Spots in Osaka and Eight Scenes of Omi.
The enormous success of the Tokaido series seems to have inspired the artist to make a similar series of the Kiso Highway, which was published in 1835. The impressive mountain scenery along the Kiso river is expressively presented by Hiroshige and sealed his name as a Landscape Print artist.
The artist, though clearly inspired by romantic views of awe-inspiring nature, didn't limit himself to the country-side. Some of his most representative work, Celebrated Places in the Eastern Capital, Eight Scenes in the Suburbs of Edo and One Hundred Celebrated Places of Edo, was done in Edo (present-day Tokyo).
Many of the prints in these series are now considered masterpieces, some of which inspired Impressionist artists like Vincent van Gogh.
Keywords: people_focus arts_entertainment
Related Links:
- Hiroshige: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo by Henry D. Smith II, Ando Hiroshige.
- Prints of Ando at the Web Museum, Paris
- Extremely large collection of prints by Ando Hiroshige
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