Utagawa Hiroshige
A late Edo-period ukiyo-e artist. He became a popular master of meisho-e (famous-place landscape prints) with the Hoeido edition of the Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido, and went on to leave many landscapes filled with the feel of weather and the seasons, through to his late series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.
Utagawa Hiroshige was born in 1797 (Kansei 9) into the Ando family, who served as fire-brigade constables (doshin of the shogunate's fire-fighting organization) at Yaesu-gashi in Edo. His real name was Ando Juemon. He lost both parents in quick succession in 1809 (Bunka 6) and at 13 took over the family post as a fire constable. Fond of drawing from childhood, he entered the studio of the ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Toyohiro around 1811 (Bunka 8). His art name Hiroshige combines one character each from his teacher's name, Toyohiro, and from his own given name, Shigeemon. He eventually handed the family post to a relative and concentrated on his art.
After Famous Places of the Eastern Capital (around 1831, Tenpo 2), the Hoeido edition of the Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido, published from around 1833 (Tenpo 4), caused a sensation and made Hiroshige an overnight star of meisho-e. His signature approach was to bring weather and time of day, such as rain, snow, mist, and dusk, into the picture, conveying the atmosphere of a place together with the people passing through it. He went on to produce many more Tokaido series, the Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaido (shared with Keisai Eisen), and Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, and also left works in bird-and-flower painting and caricature.
He died in 1858 (Ansei 5) at the age of 62, while working on his great late series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. His work is loved abroad as well: in 1887 Vincent van Gogh, then in Paris, copied in oils "Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake" from that series. Hiroshige's prints are still held in large numbers by museums in Japan and overseas.
