Ando Hiroshige

Ando Hiroshige

Ando Hiroshige was born under the name of Ando Tokutaro. He was born in Edo (now known as Tokyo) in 1797 as the son of a samurai and fireman. At the age of twelve, both his parents died in 1809. Two years later, in 1811, the young Hiroshige received a chance to join the famous Utagawa painting school. At that time, the ukiyo-e master Toyohiro Utagawa was the head of the studio. In 1812 he took his teacher's name as a sign of graduation and began to sign his work as Utagawa Hiroshige. In the ukiyo-e literature he is usually referenced as Hiroshige Ando. The first work by Utagawa Hiroshige was a book illustration published in 1818, when he was 21 years old. Until 1830, Hiroshige created prints in the traditional style learned from his master Toyohiro Utagawa. His early commissions were book illustrations. Typical subjects out of that time are kabuki actors prints, beautiful women and a few warrior prints. Almost all of Hiroshige's mature work was the Japanese landscape, which he portrayed in a lyrical manner with an emphasis upon the misty atmosphere. No other Japanese artist has succeeded in expressing so well the feeling and appearance of Japan, nor has anyone portrayed it with more delicacy and poetry. Hiroshige depicted the landscapes, as well as the people traveling about the country or performing their daily tasks, with such care that they serve as a record of Japanese life of the mid-19th century. Whether he was portraying the ancient capital of Kyoto or the new capital of Edo, the beauty of Lake Biwa, or the Tokaido roads, the artist never tired of representing the varied aspects of his native land.

Of all the many sets of prints produced by Hiroshige, whose total output is estimated at more than 5,000, and the finest is the Fifty-three Stages of the Tokaido Road, published in 1833 and reprinted numerous times ever since. This highway, which linked Edo with Kyoto, was the main road of Japan and was used by officials, businessmen, pilgrims, and sightseers who enjoyed its magnificent scenery, for it was flanked by mountains on the north and the sea on the south. Another set which is particularly fine is the Eight Views of Lake Biwa (1834), which gives expression to Hiroshige's sensitive feeling for the moods of nature during different seasons and under various atmospheric conditions. It is the kind of print which was so much admired