Utagawa Hiroshige Art Prints

Utagawa Hiroshige or Andō Hiroshige (Japanese: 安藤広重; 1797 – 1858), was a famous Japanese ukiyo-e artist, considered the last great master of that traditional art style.

He is best know for his art series called The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō and for his landscape series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. The subjects of his work were atypical of the ukiyo-e genre, whose more common focus was on Japanese ladies, popular actors of the time, 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 style prints. Hiroshige subtle use of colour was essential in his artwork, often printed with multiple impressions in the same area and with extensive use of bokashi (colour gradation), both of which were rather labour-intensive techniques.