'Winds at Yokkaichi', After Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川廣重, Ukiyo-E Woodblock, Tokaido

Details

Description

An ink on paper, Nishiki-e and Yoko-e woodblock landscape showing a view of two figures fighting wind gusts along the … Read more An ink on paper, Nishiki-e and Yoko-e woodblock landscape showing a view of two figures fighting wind gusts along the Mei River. Signed in Kanji upper 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, horizon and upper sky. Sheet Dimensions: 10.25 H x 15.25 W inches.

The wind is the central motif here, toying with both the landscape and the figures traversing it. To the right, one traveler battles against it, putting his head down and drawing his cloak tight to his body as he pushes onwards. The figure to the left is having quite a different experience, as he chases down his hat, pulled from atop his head by the gust. In the background, the solitary tree and reeds sway and bend with the breeze.

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). [H44] See less