Hiroshige: Landscape, Cityscape

Mitsuko Ito Watanabe is Assistant Director at the Oxford Centre for Asian Archaeology, Art and Culture and Research Associate in the Ashmolean Museum’s Department of Eastern Art

HIROSHIGE · LANDSCAPE, CITYSCAPE · WOODBLOCK PRINTS IN THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM

Clare Pollard is Curator of Japanese Art at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

HIROSHIGE

Landscape, Cityscape

HIROSHIGE

Landscape, Cityscape Woodblock Prints in the Ashmolean Museum Clare Pollard and Mitsuko Ito Watanabe

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) is one of the best known of all Japanese woodblock print designers.

He is particularly renowned for his landscape prints, which are among the most frequently reproduced of all Japanese works of art. Hiroshige’s landscape prints were hugely successful both in Japan and in the West. Their unusual compositions, humorous depictions of people involved in everyday activities and masterly expression of weather, light and season, proved enormously influential for many leading European artists including Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh.

This book illustrates and discusses over fifty Hiroshige landscape prints in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum and explores their historical background. It gives a concise introduction to Hiroshige’s life and career within the context of Japan’s booming nineteenth-century woodblock print industry and explores the development of the landscape print as a new genre in this period. It also discusses and illustrates the process and techniques of traditional Japanese woodblock print-making.

ISBN 978-1-85444-295-6

Front cover: Utagawa Hiroshige, The Sukiya Embankment in the Eastern Capital (cat. 41, detail)

9 781854 442956

Hiroshige cover 2.indd 1

Back cover: Utagawa Hiroshige, Clearing after Snow at Nihonbashi Bridge (cat. 21, detail)

10/11/2014 11:30

13 Tatsuta Mountains and the Tatsuta River in Yamato Province Yamato, Tatsutayama Tatsutagawa 大和 立田山龍田川 Views of Famous Places in the Sixty-odd Provinces, series number 2 7th month, 1853 37 × 25 cm Presented by Mrs Allan and Mr and Mrs H. N. Spalding, 1952 EAX.4334

According to the list of contents published on the completion of the ‘Views of Famous Places in the Sixty-odd Provinces’, the first five prints in the series depict views in the ‘Five Home Provinces’ (Gokinai), the region around the ancient capitals of Nara and Kyoto. This design, the second in the series, shows the Tatsuta Mountains and the Tatsuta River in Yamato Province (modern Nara Prefecture). The area was famous for its autumn colours and was the subject of many poems and paintings. The design may have been partly inspired by an illustration in a guide book of 1791 entitled Illustrated Guide to Famous Places in Japan (Yamato meisho zue).

Earlier impressions of this print use more colour blocks and show a more sophisticated use of bokashi in the water and sky. By the time this print was made, the subtitle cartouche has changed from the original grey to yellow and some block shrinkage has occurred, resulting in white gaps between some areas of colour. Most of the prints in this series include the signature of the block-carver Yokogawa Takejirō, whose mark reads ‘Hori Take’ (彫竹).

66 Views of the provinces

13 Tatsuta Mountains and the Tatsuta River in Yamato Province Yamato, Tatsutayama Tatsutagawa 大和 立田山龍田川 Views of Famous Places in the Sixty-odd Provinces, series number 2 7th month, 1853 37 × 25 cm Presented by Mrs Allan and Mr and Mrs H. N. Spalding, 1952 EAX.4334

According to the list of contents published on the completion of the ‘Views of Famous Places in the Sixty-odd Provinces’, the first five prints in the series depict views in the ‘Five Home Provinces’ (Gokinai), the region around the ancient capitals of Nara and Kyoto. This design, the second in the series, shows the Tatsuta Mountains and the Tatsuta River in Yamato Province (modern Nara Prefecture). The area was famous for its autumn colours and was the subject of many poems and paintings. The design may have been partly inspired by an illustration in a guide book of 1791 entitled Illustrated Guide to Famous Places in Japan (Yamato meisho zue).

Earlier impressions of this print use more colour blocks and show a more sophisticated use of bokashi in the water and sky. By the time this print was made, the subtitle cartouche has changed from the original grey to yellow and some block shrinkage has occurred, resulting in white gaps between some areas of colour. Most of the prints in this series include the signature of the block-carver Yokogawa Takejirō, whose mark reads ‘Hori Take’ (彫竹).

66 Views of the provinces

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) Woodblock Print Designer

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) is one of the best known of all Japanese woodblock print designers and his landscape prints are among the most frequently reproduced of all Japanese works of art. A prolific artist, he is thought to have created between 4,000 and 5,000 print designs during a career that lasted almost 50 years. He also worked as a painter and book illustrator.

Although Hiroshige produced a wide range of prints, including designs of beautiful women, Kabuki actors, famous historical and mythological figures and bird-and-flower studies, he is most famous for his landscape prints, which capture brilliantly the effects of season, weather and time of day.

Hiroshige was born Andō Tokutarō, a member of a low-ranking samurai family living in Japan’s capital city, Edo (modern Tokyo). Orphaned in 1809, he took up his father’s hereditary position as a fire warden, protecting Edo Castle – the headquarters of Japan’s military rulers, the Tokugawa shoguns – and the nearby residences of the shogun’s retainers. Many lower-ranking retainers of the shogun took on extra jobs to supplement their official stipends and, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, Hiroshige was employed as an apprentice at the studio of the print designer Utagawa Toyohiro (1773–1828). It was from Toyohiro that he received the studio name of ‘Utagawa’ and the artist name of ‘Hiroshige’. By the early 1830s Hiroshige was able to pass on his fire brigade position in turn to his son, allowing him to devote himself entirely to printmaking.

By Hiroshige’s time, the Japanese print industry was booming. Woodblock printing had been practised in Japan since the eighth century for the production of Buddhist texts and images, but it was not until the seventeenth century that secular printing took off, when popular books and later single-sheet prints began to be widely circulated. The centre of production was Edo, which had grown rapidly after being established as the political capital of Japan in 1600 by the Tokugawa family. For the two-and-a-half centuries of Tokugawa rule – known as the Edo period – the country was ruled by generations of Tokugawa shoguns, governing through a network of regional military lords known as daimyō. The daimyō were required to divide their time between their own domains and Edo, where they were expected to maintain second households with their families, servants, and samurai military retainers. Catering to the needs of the samurai in Edo were the many merchants and artisans (known as chōnin, or townspeople) and by Hiroshige’s day it was one of the largest cities in the world, with a population of over 1.5 million people.

Under the relative peace and stability of Tokugawa rule, the townspeople, officially at the bottom of the social hierarchy, began to prosper. Increasingly, they had money and time to spend on leisurely pursuits and artistic patronage, 8 utagawa hiroshige (1797–1858)

9

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) Woodblock Print Designer

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) is one of the best known of all Japanese woodblock print designers and his landscape prints are among the most frequently reproduced of all Japanese works of art. A prolific artist, he is thought to have created between 4,000 and 5,000 print designs during a career that lasted almost 50 years. He also worked as a painter and book illustrator.

Although Hiroshige produced a wide range of prints, including designs of beautiful women, Kabuki actors, famous historical and mythological figures and bird-and-flower studies, he is most famous for his landscape prints, which capture brilliantly the effects of season, weather and time of day.

Hiroshige was born Andō Tokutarō, a member of a low-ranking samurai family living in Japan’s capital city, Edo (modern Tokyo). Orphaned in 1809, he took up his father’s hereditary position as a fire warden, protecting Edo Castle – the headquarters of Japan’s military rulers, the Tokugawa shoguns – and the nearby residences of the shogun’s retainers. Many lower-ranking retainers of the shogun took on extra jobs to supplement their official stipends and, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, Hiroshige was employed as an apprentice at the studio of the print designer Utagawa Toyohiro (1773–1828). It was from Toyohiro that he received the studio name of ‘Utagawa’ and the artist name of ‘Hiroshige’. By the early 1830s Hiroshige was able to pass on his fire brigade position in turn to his son, allowing him to devote himself entirely to printmaking.

By Hiroshige’s time, the Japanese print industry was booming. Woodblock printing had been practised in Japan since the eighth century for the production of Buddhist texts and images, but it was not until the seventeenth century that secular printing took off, when popular books and later single-sheet prints began to be widely circulated. The centre of production was Edo, which had grown rapidly after being established as the political capital of Japan in 1600 by the Tokugawa family. For the two-and-a-half centuries of Tokugawa rule – known as the Edo period – the country was ruled by generations of Tokugawa shoguns, governing through a network of regional military lords known as daimyō. The daimyō were required to divide their time between their own domains and Edo, where they were expected to maintain second households with their families, servants, and samurai military retainers. Catering to the needs of the samurai in Edo were the many merchants and artisans (known as chōnin, or townspeople) and by Hiroshige’s day it was one of the largest cities in the world, with a population of over 1.5 million people.

Under the relative peace and stability of Tokugawa rule, the townspeople, officially at the bottom of the social hierarchy, began to prosper. Increasingly, they had money and time to spend on leisurely pursuits and artistic patronage, 8 utagawa hiroshige (1797–1858)

9

and a lively popular culture developed that focused on the entertainments available in the pleasure districts of the major cities, with their brothels, Kabuki theatres, restaurants, firework displays and sumo tournaments. In these districts, different classes of society mixed freely and money and style took precedence over social status. The carefree urban environment of the pleasure quarters was known as the ‘floating world’ or ukiyo. The townspeople eagerly commissioned and purchased paintings that depicted the courtesans, actors and tea house girls who were the stars of the floating world. These ‘pictures of the floating world’ (ukiyo-e) were produced by anonymous professional artists who did not belong to the recognized schools of painting and carried out cheap commission work. In order to meet the steadily growing demand for pictures, the woodblock print format was developed in the late 1600s as a means of mass-production. The first ukiyo-e images were printed in black and white, then during the eighteenth century colour was introduced, first added by hand, later by the use of two additional blocks, one for red and one for green. By the 1760s, full-colour prints, or nishiki-e (brocade pictures) were being produced. Hiroshige’s hometown of Edo was the centre of Japanese print production; although prints were also published in Osaka, Kyoto, Nagasaki, and other regional towns, it was on a much smaller scale.

The emergence of the landscape print At the beginning of his career in the 1820s, Hiroshige produced typical ukiyo-e prints of beautiful women, Kabuki actors and historical figures. He also produced privately published prints (surimono) for groups of poets and illustrated a number of books. None of these early works suggested any particularly outstanding talent, however, and it was not until the 1830s, when he began to design landscape prints (fūkei-ga), that he really established his reputation.

Indeed, the single-sheet landscape print itself did not become mainstream until the 1830s. Although there is a long tradition of landscape painting in Japan, where most Japanese artists were trained by a teacher from the Kanō school, with a focus on Chinese-derived ink and landscape painting, landscape elements were only included in prints to provide a context for figures of actors or beautiful women. The first significant landscape prints emerged during the 1740s, when some artists became intrigued by imported Western copper-plate prints of landscapes or city views and began making what became known as ‘perspective pictures’ (uki-e). These experimented with Western fixed-point perspective, which was quite different from the shifting, atmospheric perspective applied in Asia, in which distant objects were shown at the top of the page and near ones at the bottom, and bands of cloud or mist were incorporated to separate near and far space. Most perspective pictures depicted the interiors of Kabuki theatres or tea houses and few attempted to convey any particular atmospheric effects, such as time of day, so they were quite different from the mature landscape prints of Hiroshige and his contemporaries. However, it is worth noting that Hiroshige’s teacher, Utagawa Toyohiro (1773–1828), had experimented in this genre in the early nineteenth century.

10 utagawa hiroshige (1797–1858)

Fig. 1 Utagawa Hiroshige, Bijin (beautiful woman) looking at prints, from a series of bijin with landscape cartouches, Shinobazu Benten Shrine (Shinobazu), Collection of Benten Shrines in the Present Day (Imayō Benten zukushi), 1820–1822.

Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, John H. Van Vleck Endowment Fund purchase, 2000.85 Fig. 2 Katsukawa Shunshō (1726–1793), The Night Attack at Horikawa, Perspective Print in Two Sheets (Horikawa youchi no zu, uki-e nimai tsuzuki), late 1790s, colour woodblock print, right sheet of a diptych. Presented by Mrs Allan and Mr and Mrs H. N. Spalding, 1952, EAX.4047

Other early precursors of the landscape print were the illustrated printed guide books that began to be published in the late 1700s, as leisure travel became more common in Japan. These were called meisho zue (illustrated guides to famous places) and combined images and descriptions – both in poetry and prose – of well known sights around the country. Although travel for the sake of travel was not officially allowed and the authorities maintained strict travel restrictions, as the economy improved growing numbers of people had enough money and leisure time to travel. A growing market for travel literature emerged as people looked for souvenirs of their travels, or for ways of visualizing places they dreamed of visiting, and gazetteers and guides were soon joined by travel board games, souvenirs and maps.

The illustrations in the early guides were largely in black and white. However, once the Western pigment known as bero-ai (Berlin or Prussian blue) became widely available from the 1820s, making it easier to depict sky and water effectively, it became commercially viable to produce landscape prints in colour.

Unlike earlier Japanese blues, which had been coarse or highly fugitive and unstable, the permanent and brilliantly coloured Prussian blue gave artists considerably more freedom of expression. The new blue was particularly effective when applied using a method of sophisticated colour gradation known as bokashi, in which printers varied the amount of pigment that was applied to the woodblock by wiping or diluting the ink. It was these technical factors that seem to have been particularly crucial in the emergence of single-sheet, fullcolour landscape prints in the 1830s. In the highly competitive print market,

utagawa hiroshige (1797–1858) 11

and a lively popular culture developed that focused on the entertainments available in the pleasure districts of the major cities, with their brothels, Kabuki theatres, restaurants, firework displays and sumo tournaments. In these districts, different classes of society mixed freely and money and style took precedence over social status. The carefree urban environment of the pleasure quarters was known as the ‘floating world’ or ukiyo. The townspeople eagerly commissioned and purchased paintings that depicted the courtesans, actors and tea house girls who were the stars of the floating world. These ‘pictures of the floating world’ (ukiyo-e) were produced by anonymous professional artists who did not belong to the recognized schools of painting and carried out cheap commission work. In order to meet the steadily growing demand for pictures, the woodblock print format was developed in the late 1600s as a means of mass-production. The first ukiyo-e images were printed in black and white, then during the eighteenth century colour was introduced, first added by hand, later by the use of two additional blocks, one for red and one for green. By the 1760s, full-colour prints, or nishiki-e (brocade pictures) were being produced. Hiroshige’s hometown of Edo was the centre of Japanese print production; although prints were also published in Osaka, Kyoto, Nagasaki, and other regional towns, it was on a much smaller scale.

The emergence of the landscape print At the beginning of his career in the 1820s, Hiroshige produced typical ukiyo-e prints of beautiful women, Kabuki actors and historical figures. He also produced privately published prints (surimono) for groups of poets and illustrated a number of books. None of these early works suggested any particularly outstanding talent, however, and it was not until the 1830s, when he began to design landscape prints (fūkei-ga), that he really established his reputation.

Indeed, the single-sheet landscape print itself did not become mainstream until the 1830s. Although there is a long tradition of landscape painting in Japan, where most Japanese artists were trained by a teacher from the Kanō school, with a focus on Chinese-derived ink and landscape painting, landscape elements were only included in prints to provide a context for figures of actors or beautiful women. The first significant landscape prints emerged during the 1740s, when some artists became intrigued by imported Western copper-plate prints of landscapes or city views and began making what became known as ‘perspective pictures’ (uki-e). These experimented with Western fixed-point perspective, which was quite different from the shifting, atmospheric perspective applied in Asia, in which distant objects were shown at the top of the page and near ones at the bottom, and bands of cloud or mist were incorporated to separate near and far space. Most perspective pictures depicted the interiors of Kabuki theatres or tea houses and few attempted to convey any particular atmospheric effects, such as time of day, so they were quite different from the mature landscape prints of Hiroshige and his contemporaries. However, it is worth noting that Hiroshige’s teacher, Utagawa Toyohiro (1773–1828), had experimented in this genre in the early nineteenth century.

10 utagawa hiroshige (1797–1858)

Fig. 1 Utagawa Hiroshige, Bijin (beautiful woman) looking at prints, from a series of bijin with landscape cartouches, Shinobazu Benten Shrine (Shinobazu), Collection of Benten Shrines in the Present Day (Imayō Benten zukushi), 1820–1822.

Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, John H. Van Vleck Endowment Fund purchase, 2000.85 Fig. 2 Katsukawa Shunshō (1726–1793), The Night Attack at Horikawa, Perspective Print in Two Sheets (Horikawa youchi no zu, uki-e nimai tsuzuki), late 1790s, colour woodblock print, right sheet of a diptych. Presented by Mrs Allan and Mr and Mrs H. N. Spalding, 1952, EAX.4047

Other early precursors of the landscape print were the illustrated printed guide books that began to be published in the late 1700s, as leisure travel became more common in Japan. These were called meisho zue (illustrated guides to famous places) and combined images and descriptions – both in poetry and prose – of well known sights around the country. Although travel for the sake of travel was not officially allowed and the authorities maintained strict travel restrictions, as the economy improved growing numbers of people had enough money and leisure time to travel. A growing market for travel literature emerged as people looked for souvenirs of their travels, or for ways of visualizing places they dreamed of visiting, and gazetteers and guides were soon joined by travel board games, souvenirs and maps.

The illustrations in the early guides were largely in black and white. However, once the Western pigment known as bero-ai (Berlin or Prussian blue) became widely available from the 1820s, making it easier to depict sky and water effectively, it became commercially viable to produce landscape prints in colour.

Unlike earlier Japanese blues, which had been coarse or highly fugitive and unstable, the permanent and brilliantly coloured Prussian blue gave artists considerably more freedom of expression. The new blue was particularly effective when applied using a method of sophisticated colour gradation known as bokashi, in which printers varied the amount of pigment that was applied to the woodblock by wiping or diluting the ink. It was these technical factors that seem to have been particularly crucial in the emergence of single-sheet, fullcolour landscape prints in the 1830s. In the highly competitive print market,

utagawa hiroshige (1797–1858) 11

Making a Japanese woodblock print

The art of woodblock printmaking was a collaborative process between the artist, engraver, printer and publisher. Although Hiroshige was the designer of the prints published in his name, he was in fact just one of a team of people responsible for making them.

Commissions and censorship The publisher was responsible for the overall project: for coming up with a commercially viable concept for a print or group of prints, for hiring the artist and craftsmen and arranging for the sale of the finished prints. First, he commissioned an artist to make a design or series of designs for single-sheet prints or an illustrated book. The artist provided a preliminary brush sketch in black ink on white paper (shita-e) (see fig. 15). Once this brush sketch had received the publisher’s approval, the artist, one of the artist’s pupils or a copyist employed by the publisher then worked the sketch up into a finely detailed picture on very thin, translucent paper. This more elaborate drawing (hanshita-e) included all the outlines, signatures and other text that would appear in the finished print.

The publisher then submitted this design to official government censors, who checked to ensure that the content was neither immoral nor critical of the government. Commercial ukiyo-e prints were not allowed to depict the Fig. 15 Utagawa Hiroshige, Shita-e preparatory sketch, ink on paper. The Hiroshige Museum of Art, Tendō

22 utagawa hiroshige (1797–1858)

23

Making a Japanese woodblock print

The art of woodblock printmaking was a collaborative process between the artist, engraver, printer and publisher. Although Hiroshige was the designer of the prints published in his name, he was in fact just one of a team of people responsible for making them.

Commissions and censorship The publisher was responsible for the overall project: for coming up with a commercially viable concept for a print or group of prints, for hiring the artist and craftsmen and arranging for the sale of the finished prints. First, he commissioned an artist to make a design or series of designs for single-sheet prints or an illustrated book. The artist provided a preliminary brush sketch in black ink on white paper (shita-e) (see fig. 15). Once this brush sketch had received the publisher’s approval, the artist, one of the artist’s pupils or a copyist employed by the publisher then worked the sketch up into a finely detailed picture on very thin, translucent paper. This more elaborate drawing (hanshita-e) included all the outlines, signatures and other text that would appear in the finished print.

The publisher then submitted this design to official government censors, who checked to ensure that the content was neither immoral nor critical of the government. Commercial ukiyo-e prints were not allowed to depict the Fig. 15 Utagawa Hiroshige, Shita-e preparatory sketch, ink on paper. The Hiroshige Museum of Art, Tendō

22 utagawa hiroshige (1797–1858)

23