Discussion on Hiroshige's 100 Views of Edo 001: Nihonbashi Yukibare

 

Hiroshige's 100 Views of Edo 001: Nihonbashi Yukibare (from https://www.hiroshige.org.uk/)

If you follow my blog you know that with few exceptions I only post my own artwork, and more recently it is almost all 'hot of the press' so to speak. In this blog, I wanted to discuss Hiroshige's print Nihonbashi Yukibare from his famous series 100 views of Edo. You see an image of his original print from the excellent website hiroshige.org.uk. In real life it would be about 39 x 26.5 cm which is the Japanese Oban format, and they are all composed on the vertical instead of horizontal. This was the series that put Hiroshige into the elite category of artisan in Edo (the old name for Tokyo), it really did represent his peak output. He was the first to compose landscapes on a vertical format since traditionally landscapes are done on a horizontal format. It was quite the sensation, in mid 1800's imagine seeing this big colourful landscape print showing a popular bridge in Edo, mount Fuji in the background, and the ships and stores along the river. He often composed winter scenes, and you can see how expertly he designed the snow features on the trees, hills, boats, bricks and roof tops. These are wood block prints so Hiroshige made a drawing and gave instructions for the wood block carvers and printers who would churn out hundreds or perhaps up to thousands of prints for sale by the publisher. 

The reason this print is so exciting is that it represents a cross roads of influences spanning the globe. Prior to the Dutch colony which was established in Japan around in the 18th century (1700's), Japanese artists were mostly influenced by Chinese buddist art which consisted of a 'floating world'. The Chinese artists had objects like mountains, paths, trees and people, all floating in amongst clouds without much of a clear horizon line or sense of landscape per say. It was the great Hokusai who first entered one of the Dutch trading colonies in Japan and learned from their artists how to paint through the 'Dutch lens' as he called it. Dutch painters were used to painting expansive flat scenes with windmills and boats tightly composed on a horizon line. Fast forward to the print under discussion and we see elements of all those influences. The pinkish clouds just below mount Fuji at the top represent the 'floating world' which translates to Ukiyo-e the name of this style. The mountain line and realistic looking perspective comes from the dutch influence. Thus, Hiroshige was able to fuse together the decorative and 'flattened out' traditional Japanese style with the more accurate and earthy Dutch style to produce these unique prints.