'View of Hiratsuka', 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 travelers on the Nawate Road in Hiratsuka, circa 1850. Signed … Read more An ink on paper, Nishiki-e and Yoko-e woodblock landscape showing travelers on the Nawate Road in Hiratsuka, circa 1850. Signed in Kanji upper left, "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 horizon and upper sky. Sheet Dimensions: 10.25 H x 15.25 W inches.

A path winds through a section of wetland as we exit the Hiratsuka post station. Directly before us is a series of signs, which display local laws, edicts, distance markers, and the assigned times for daimyo to travel. In the foreground we see two travelers carrying goods along the road that stretches into the distance. Running towards them is an official government courier carrying information in a box slung over his shoulder. He will pass off this package to a new courier in the next post station. The top of Mt. Fuji pokes out from between the hills in the background.

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). [H08] See less