Utagawa Hiroshige

Utagawa Hiroshige or Andō Hiroshige (Japanese: 安藤 広重; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, considered the last great master of that tradition.

He is best known for his art series, 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 prints.

Subtle use of colour was essential in Hiroshige’s 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.