Utagawa Hiroshige

About the Artist

Utagawa Hiroshige, born in 1797 and died in 1858, was a Japanese ukiyo-e painter active against the cultural backdrop of the Edo period. Regarded as the last great master of ukiyo-e, he brought a poetic, lyrical approach that differed from the traditional ukiyo-e genre. His work centers on natural landscapes and everyday scenes, creating a distinctive mood through delicate color and the bokashi gradation technique. Signature works include the horizontal landscape series 'The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō' and the vertical series 'One Hundred Famous Views of Edo,' works that symbolize his artistic achievement. Hiroshige's art had a major influence on 19th-century Western European artists, becoming an important element of the Japonisme movement.