Hiroshige

Best.-Nr. X16 — Sipping Tea Viewing Mount Fuji. Original woodblock from the series "Ehon Edo Miyage" published by Kikuya Kozaburo Volume 3 printed in Japan 1850-68. 295 x 210 mm. This original print is delivered to you in its unframed state carefully protected in a solid cardboard tube. Utagawa Hiroshige born AndÅ TokutarÅ 安藤 徳太郎; 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 TÅkaidÅ 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. Japanese woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e Produced in their many thousands and hugely popular during the Edo period 1615 – 1868 these colourful woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e depicted scenes from everyday Japan. Ukiyo-e literally means 'pictures of the floating world'. The 'floating world' referred to the licensed brothel and theatre districts of Japan's major cities during the Edo period. Inhabited by prostitutes and Kabuki actors Kabuki is a traditional Japanese form of theatre these were the playgrounds of the newly wealthy merchant class. Despite their low status in the strict social hierarchy of the time actors and courtesans became the style icons of their day and their fashions spread to the general population via inexpensive woodblock prints. The ukiyo-e style was developed in 1765 and remained popular until the closing decades of the Meiji period 1868 – 1912. While only the wealthy could afford paintings by the artists of the day ukiyo-e prints were enjoyed by a wide audience because they could be produced quite cheaply and in large numbers. The production process The earliest woodblock prints were simple black and white prints taken from a single block. Sometimes they were coloured by hand but this process was expensive. In the 1740s additional woodblocks were used to print the colours pink and green but it wasn't until 1765 that the technique of using multiple colour woodblocks was perfected. The glorious full-colour prints that resulted were known as nishiki-e or 'brocade pictures'. The team involved in the production of ukiyo-e was known as the 'ukiyo-e quartet'. It comprised the publisher who usually had overall control of the process the designer/artist the block cutter and the printer. The artist would draw the design on paper. Once complete an exact copy was made and placed face-down on a cherry wood block. Cherry wood was favoured due to the fine even grain and consistent density. The block cutter then carved directly through the copy to produce what is known as the 'key-block'. The printer used the key-block to produce a number of black and white prints from which further blocks could be made for each colour needed in the final print. Known as 'key-block proofs' these prints feature registration marks: small rectangles outside the area of the picture. When the colour blocks were carved these marks were used to create stops so that the printer could line up the separate colours precisely.