Author(s): CALZA Gian Carlo

Artists & Styles

This is a fascinating and comprehensive reference album of Hiroshige (1797-1858), the last great figure of the Ukiyo-e style of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings. Hiroshige (1797-1858), Japanese painter and printmaker, especially known for his landscape prints. The last great figure of the Ukiyo-e, or popular school of printmaking, he transmuted everyday landscapes into intimate, lyrical scenes. With Hokusai, Hiroshige dominated the popular art of Japan in the first half of the nineteenth century. He captured, in a poetic, gentle way that all could understand, the ordinary person's experience of the Japanese landscape as well as the varied moods of memorable places at different times. His total output was immense, some 5400 prints in all. Ukiyo-e publishing was not a cultural institution subsidized by public funds, but rather a commercial business. During his lifetime, Hiroshige was well known and commercially successful. But the Japanese society did not take too much notice of him. His real reputation started with his discovery in Europe.