'View of an Inn', After Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川廣重, Ukiyo-E Woodblock, Tokaido

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An ink on paper, Nishiki-e and Yoko-e woodblock landscape showing a view of an the Ohashiya Inn in Akasaka, circa … Read more An ink on paper, Nishiki-e and Yoko-e woodblock landscape showing a view of an the Ohashiya Inn in Akasaka, circa 1850. This family-owned inn operated from 1649-2015 and, upon it's closing, was preserved by the Toyokawa city government. Signed in Kanji lower right, "Hiroshige Ga" for Utagawa (Ando) Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797-1858) and printed circa 1946 by Gihachiro Okuyama (1907-1981). An exceptionally crisp image with fresh color, printed on traditional Washi paper and showing delicate bokashi gradation of sumi ink in the foreground and upper sky. Sheet Dimensions: 10.25 H x 15.25 W inches.

This is the lone print of the series to show an interior scene. Here we see what staying in one of the inns along the Tōkaidō might have been like. On the left, a man returns to his room after taking a bath. In the room before him, a man smokes his pipe while reclining on the floor; a food server and a masseuse approach him from the right. At the far right are three women, most likely courtesans, who work at the inn; they are applying makeup and preparing for the night’s work.

This example is from Okuyama's mid-century reissue of the artist's "Fifty Three Stations of the Tokaido Road", a series of Ukiyo-e prints created between 1833 and 1855. These depicted various views of the most important five main trade roads connecting Kyoto to modern-day Tokyo during the Edo period (1603-1868). A comic poem or "kyoka" also appears, inscribed in elegant kuzushiji script.

The best-known student of Utagawa Toyohiro (ca.1773-1829), Utagawa Hiroshige studied the Western style introduced by the founder of the Utagawa school, Toyoharu (1735-1814). Together with Hokusai, Hiroshige is considered one of the two leading Japanese landscape painters of the nineteenth century and he became one of the foremost representatives of the Ukiyo-e movement. He created more than 400 woodcut and woodblock prints of actors, warriors, courtesans and, particularly, naturalistic landscapes of Japan. Hiroshige's work was highly regarded in his own time and also became influential in the development of European Modernist painting of the late nineteenth century, especially that of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists including Monet, Van Gogh and Gauguin.

(For descriptions of the individual works, we are indebted to Nicholas Scaglione and Professor Ingrid Furniss of Lafayette College). [H37] See less