Hiroshige

Utagawa Hiroshige (, also ; ), born Andō Tokutarō (; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist, considered the last great master of that tradition.

Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format landscape series ''The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō'' and for his vertical-format landscape series ''One Hundred Famous Views of Edo''. The subjects of his work were atypical of the ''ukiyo-e'' genre, whose typical focus was on beautiful women, popular actors, and other scenes of the urban pleasure districts of Japan's Edo period (1603–1868). The popular series ''Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji'' by Hokusai was a strong influence on Hiroshige's choice of subject, though Hiroshige's approach was more poetic and ambient than Hokusai's bolder, more formal prints. Subtle use of color was essential in Hiroshige's prints, often printed with multiple impressions in the same area and with extensive use of ''bokashi'' (color gradation), both of which were rather labor-intensive techniques.

For scholars and collectors, Hiroshige's death marked the beginning of a rapid decline in the ''ukiyo-e'' genre, especially in the face of the westernization that followed the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Hiroshige's work came to have a marked influence on western European painting towards the close of the 19th century as a part of the trend in Japonism. Western European artists, such as Manet and Monet, collected and closely studied Hiroshige's compositions: Vincent van Gogh, for instance, painted copies of some Hiroshige prints. Provided by Wikipedia