HIROSHIGE

Ando Hiroshige is considered by many as the last of the great creative masters of the traditional Japanese woodblock print. His skill has won him worldwide fame and artistic influence, along with his contemporary, Katsushika Hokusai. Both artists widened the range of subjects they covered to encompass every aspect of life in Japan?s Edo period. Although famous primarily for his landscapes and the studies of his home city of Edo, Hiroshige produced many others kinds of ukiyo-e , or everyday images of Japan. He was a mood and nature painter, who loved to portray and capture the changing seasons and weather. A poet of snow, rain, and wind, and a great lover of moonlight, dawn, and dusk, Hiroshige dominated landscape printmaking with his unique and intimate small-scale prints as opposed to the older traditions of landscape painting. This book is a selected collection of Hiroshige?s paintings in the series 100 Famous Views of Edo. He completed all but a handful of the scenes before his death. His son finished the series. The series is divided into the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter.