Hiroshige Andō

"Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, actually composed of 118 splendid woodblock landscape and genre scenes of mid-nineteenth-century Tokyo, is one of the greatest achievements of Japanese art. The series, reproduced here in its entirety for the first time in a Western edition, contains many of Hiroshige's best-loved and most extraordinary prints. It is a celebration of the style and world of Japan's finest cultural flowering at the end of the shogunate." "Hiroshige, perhaps the most brilliant of the ukiyo-e printmakers, revealed the panorama of his city's activities with subtle and vivid visual anecdotes: fireworks seen from the river, fashionable geishas on parade, the kabuki district at night, intimate moments in the gardens and teahouses. But more than a historical document, the views are really vignettes presented from a remarkable variety of vantage points - aerial perspectives, multiple viewpoints, framed repoussoirs - and incorporate the natural beauty and atmospheric effects of every season: crisp autumn moonlight, cherry blossoms and irises in the spring, summer rain on the waterways, and temples in the winter snow. It is a tour de force of artistic vision and printmaking craftsmanship that epitomizes the inventiveness of ukiyo-e art." "The volume is printed in Japan and has been reproduced from an exceptionally fine, first-edition set in the Brooklyn Museum of Art to insure maximum fidelity to the original prints."--BOOK JACKET.

"These pencil, ink, and watercolor drawings by the great Japanese master Hiroshige Ando (1797-1858) were made when he was at the height of his talent and popularity. Rarely circulated or seen, the drawings, which appear in two sketchbooks, range from everyday scenes of a worker in a rice field stopping to smoke or fishing boats at work, to episodes of classic Japanese folklore and fantasy. The colors are fresh, the renderings fluid, and the use of space astonishing. With just a few brushstrokes, Hiroshige creates scenes of enduring elegance. As Daniel Boorstin states in his foreword, "No study of art history or chronology is needed to enjoy the shock and revelation of the blank page transformed." Even those unacquainted with Japanese art will be enchanted by their delicate beauty." "Hiroshige executed these drawings around 1840 while traveling in Japan; they are now in the Crosby Stuart Noyes Collection in the Library of Congress. This one-volume edition has been printed in Japan to ensure the utmost care in reproducing the subtle nuances of Hiroshige's masterpieces, which are reproduced to size and in their original sequence."--Jacket.

"The woodblock print represents for most westerners the epitome of Japanese art. Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), renowned for his work in ukiyo-e (woodblock prints), rose to fame first in Japan and later in the West with his ingenious portrayal of the famous Tokaido, the national highway connecting Tokyo with the capitol at Kyoto and the western provinces. Spotted along the way were fifty-three stations in small villages where lodgings and refreshment were available. Hiroshige named his prints after these stations. These full-color woodblock prints first made their appearance in 1834. Hiroshige showed the Tokaido in other later series, but it is in the original group, reproduced in the present volume, that the color and excitement of the road are best portrayed. Warriors, tradesmen, royal couriers, ladies of the pleasure houses--all are shown with great detail and charm. The prints showing each "stage" of the Tokaido are here presented only slightly small than their original size as produced by Hiroshige, along with a map of the entire route. Ichitaro Kondo has provided a text for each of the prints and Charles S. terry has translated the entire work into English."--Publisher's description.