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歌川 広重 or 安藤 広重, born Andō Tokutarō (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 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.
Hiroshige went through several name changes as a youth: Jūemon, Tokubē, and Tetsuzō. He had three sisters, one of whom died when he was three. His mother died in early 1809, and his father followed later in the year, but not before handing his fire warden duties to his twelve-year-old son. He was charged with prevention of fires at Edo Castle, a duty that left him much leisure time.
Not long after his parents' deaths, perhaps at around fourteen, Hiroshige—then named Tokutarō— began painting. He sought the tutelage of Utagawa Toyokuni of the Utagawa school, but Toyokuni had too many pupils to make room for him. A librarian introduced him instead to Toyohiro of the same school. By 1812 Hiroshige was permitted to sign his works, which he did under the art name Hiroshige. He also studied the techniques of the well-established Kanō school, the nanga whose tradition began with the Chinese Southern School, and the realistic Shijō school, and likely the linear perspective techniques of Western art and uki-e.
Hiroshige's apprentice work included book illustrations and single-sheet ukiyo-e prints of female beauties and kabuki actors in the Utagawa style, sometimes signing them Ichiyūsai or, from 1832, Ichiryūsai. In 1823, he passed his post as fire warden on to his son, though he still acted as an alternate. He declined an offer to succeed Toyohiro upon the master's death in 1828.
An invitation to join an official procession to Kyoto in 1832 gave Hiroshige the opportunity to travel along the Tōkaidō route that linked the two capitals. He sketched the scenery along the way, and when he returned to Edo he produced the series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō, which contains some of his best-known prints. Hiroshige built on the series' success by following it with others, such as the Illustrated Places of Naniwa (1834), Famous Places of Kyoto (1835), another Eight Views of Ōmi (1834). As he had never been west of Kyoto, Hiroshige-based his illustrations of Naniwa (modern Osaka) and Ōmi Province on pictures found in books and paintings.
Hiroshige11 hakone.jpg|Print 11: Hakone
Hiroshige16 kanbara.jpg|Print 16: Kanbara
Hiroshige, Travellers surprised by sudden rain.jpg|Print 46: Rain Shower at Shōno
Hiroshige's first wife helped finance his trips to sketch travel locations, in one instance selling some of her clothing and ornamental combs. She died in October 1838, and Hiroshige remarried to Oyasu, sixteen years his junior, daughter of a farmer named Kaemon from Tōtōmi Province.
Around 1838 Hiroshige produced two series entitled Eight Views of the Edo Environs, each print accompanied by a humorous kyōka poem. The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaidō saw print between about 1835 and 1842, a joint production with Keisai Eisen, of which Hiroshige's share was forty-six of the seventy prints. The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaidō was issued jointly by Takenouchi and Iseya Rihei . Hiroshige produced 118 sheets for the One Hundred Famous Views of EdoForbes & Henley (2014). Full series over the last decade of his life, beginning about 1848. In One Hundred Famous Views of Edo Hiroshige frequently places large-scale objects, people and animals, or parts of them, in the foreground. This device, derived from Western art, was intended to add depth to the composition.
De pruimenboomgaard te Kameido-Rijksmuseum RP-P-1956-743.jpeg| Edo, print 30: The Plum Garden in Kameido
100 views edo 063.jpg| Edo, print 63: Suidō Bridge and the Surugadai Quarter
03 - Sukiyagahsi.jpg| Thirty-six Views, print 3: Sukiyagashi in the Eastern Capital
Hiroshige, Futamigaura in Ise Province, 1858.jpg| Thirty-six Views, print 27: Futami Bay in Ise Province
Hiroshige II Suō Iwakuni.jpg| Suō Iwakuni, Hiroshige II, 1859
Hiroshige III - Teppōzu Akashi-bashi.jpg| Teppōzu Akashi-bashi, Hiroshige III,
Hirokage - Comic Incidents at Famous Places in Edo (Edo meisho dôke zukushi), No. 22, dog stealing a workman's meal from a snow Daruma.jpg| Dog stealing a workman's meal from a snow Daruma doll, Utagawa Hirokage,
In 1856, Hiroshige "retired from the world", becoming a Buddhist monk; this was the year he began his One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. He died aged 62 during the great Edo cholera epidemic of 1858 (whether the epidemic killed him is unknown) and was buried in a Zen Buddhism temple in Asakusa. Just before his death, he left a farewell poem:
(The Western Land in this context refers to the strip of land by the Tōkaidō between Kyoto and Edo, but it does double duty as a reference to the paradise of the Amida Buddha).
Despite his productivity and popularity, Hiroshige was not wealthy—his commissions were less than those of other in-demand artists, amounting to an income of about twice the wages of a day labourer. His will left instructions for the payment of his debts.
He dominated landscape printmaking with his unique brand of intimate, almost small-scale works compared against the older traditions of landscape painting descended from Chinese landscape painters such as Sesshu. The travel prints generally depict travelers along famous routes experiencing the special attractions of various stops along the way. They travel in the rain, in snow, and during all of the seasons. In 1856, working with the publisher Uoya Eikichi, he created a series of luxury edition prints, made with the finest printing techniques including true gradation of color, the addition of mica to lend a unique iridescent effect, embossing, fabric printing, blind printing, and the use of glue printing (wherein ink is mixed with glue for a glittery effect). Hiroshige pioneered the use of the vertical format in landscape printing in his series Famous Views of the Sixty-odd Provinces. One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (issued serially between 1856 and 1859) was immensely popular. The set was published posthumously and some prints had not been completed—he had created over 100 on his own, but two were added by Hiroshige II after his death.
During Hiroshige's time, the print industry was booming, and the consumer audience for prints was growing rapidly. Prior to this time, most print series had been issued in small sets, such as ten or twelve designs per series. Increasingly large series were produced to meet demand, and this trend can be seen in Hiroshige's work, such as The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaidō and One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.
In terms of style, Hiroshige is especially noted for using unusual vantage points, seasonal allusions, and striking colors. In particular, he worked extensively within the realm of (名所絵) pictures of famous places. During the Edo period, tourism was also booming, leading to increased popular interest in travel. Travel guides abounded, and towns appeared along routes such as the Tōkaidō, a road that connected Edo with Kyoto. In the midst of this burgeoning travel culture, Hiroshige drew upon his own travels, as well as tales of others' adventures, for inspiration in creating his landscapes. For example, in The Fifty-three Stations on the Tōkaidō (1833), he illustrates anecdotes from Travels on the Eastern Seaboard (東海道中膝栗毛 , 1802–1809) by Jippensha Ikku, a comedy describing the adventures of two bumbling travelers as they make their way along the same road.
Hiroshige's The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō (1833–1834) and One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856–1858) greatly influenced France Impressionists such as Monet. Vincent van Gogh copied two of the One Hundred Famous Views of Edo which were among his collection of ukiyo-e prints. Hiroshige's style also influenced the Mir iskusstva, a 20th-century art movement in which Ivan Bilibin and Mstislav Dobuzhinsky were major artists. Dobuzhinsky confessed of Hiroshige's influence "I liked to choose a viewpoint of my own so that the composition would be striking, unusual; in that, I had the constant example of Hiroshige before my eyes". Cézanne and Whistler were also amongst those under Hiroshige's influence. Hiroshige was regarded by Louis Gonse, director of the influential Gazette des Beaux-Arts and author of the two volume L'Art Japonais in 1883, as the greatest painter of landscapes of the 19th century. (1975). 9780910386227, Cleveland Museum of Art, Walters Art Gallery, Robert G. Sawyers Publications. ISBN 9780910386227
Hiroshige Atake sous une averse soudaine.jpg| Sudden Shower Over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake, Hiroshige, 1857
One of the One Hundred Famous Views of Edo
Vincent van Gogh - Brug in de regen- naar Hiroshige - Google Art Project.jpg| Bridge in the rain (after Hiroshige), Vincent van Gogh (from Japonaiserie), oil on canvas, 1887
De pruimenboomgaard te Kameido-Rijksmuseum RP-P-1956-743.jpeg| The Plum Garden in Kameido (1857), from Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo
Vincent van Gogh - Bloeiende pruimenboomgaard- naar Hiroshige - Google Art Project.jpg| Flowering Plum Tree (after Hiroshige) (1887) by Vincent van Gogh, from his Japonaiserie, in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam
File:Hiroshige A shrine among trees on a moor.jpg|A shrine among trees on a moor
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