English
Edo - Images of a city between visual poetry and idealized reality
By Melanie Trede. Excerpt from the book 'Hiroshige. One Hundred Famous Views of Edo'
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In the second month of 1856, the censors approved five prints by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) with the series title One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei). And so began the story of one of the most famous landscape series in the history of Japanese woodblock printing.While the city of Edo, renamed Tokyo in 1868, had already been chosen as the subject of numerous paintings, printed books and other woodcut series, there had never been a series with so many views as was promised in the title of this one. The promise was more than kept: by the time of the appearance of the final pictures in the tenth month of 1858, a total of 120 individual prints, issued in instalments, did indeed constitute the most comprehensive topographical series among ukiyo-e, "pictures of the floating world".
The term ukiyo goes back to the Buddhist notion of the world's illusory and transitory nature. In the course of the late 17th century, the term was extended to secular contexts, referring now not only to the pleasures of the theatres, teahouses and brothels, but also to other popular entertainments in the cities of Kyoto, Osaka and Edo. The last part of the word, e, simply means picture. Many ukiyo-e functioned as advertisements for theatrical performances or sumo tournaments, or they fêted the celebrities of entertainment culture. Portraits of actors in their latest roles, along with those of the most popular, trend-setting courtesans, were among the best-selling motifs.
These purely urban amusements had been joined since the 1760s by landscapes. The increasingly mobile population were familiar with many of the places depicted at first hand, but even when they were not, they could use the printed "views" to form an impression of the places they had heard about in stories and poems. The lay members of poets' circles in the field of haikai and kyo - ka satirical poems - Hiroshige was one - often used privately distributed prints or illustrated books to depict sites or districts known for their seasonal attractions, and they worked together with woodblock print artists to this end. Some luxury editions of poetry from the 1820s concentrated on Edo, and soon afterwards views of this city, with its one million inhabitants and respected culture, became one of the central themes of ukiyo-e prints. Hiroshige was the undisputed master of this art form. The colors, sites and compositional principles he selected in the One Hundred Famous Views of Edo fascinated the local clientele to such an extent that each print had to be reprinted between ten and fifteen thousand times. As the posthumously compiled table of contents (page 51) mentions in its title cartouche (on a red ground), the series is the artist's most prestigious achievement (issei ichidai). Hiroshige's predominance in the landscape genre was quickly recognized by European painters and art dealers. The print Bamboo Quay by Kyo-bashi Bridge inspired, among others, the painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), who was a collector of Japanese objects in general and Hiroshige's prints in particular. The oil painting Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Old Battersea Bridge, created between 1872 and 1875, bears witness to Whistler's confrontation with the atmospheric evening mood, the low vantage point and the marked feeling for color combinations that we find in Hiroshige.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4]
In the second month of 1856, the censors approved five prints by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) with the series title One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei). And so began the story of one of the most famous landscape series in the history of Japanese woodblock printing.While the city of Edo, renamed Tokyo in 1868, had already been chosen as the subject of numerous paintings, printed books and other woodcut series, there had never been a series with so many views as was promised in the title of this one. The promise was more than kept: by the time of the appearance of the final pictures in the tenth month of 1858, a total of 120 individual prints, issued in instalments, did indeed constitute the most comprehensive topographical series among ukiyo-e, "pictures of the floating world".
The term ukiyo goes back to the Buddhist notion of the world's illusory and transitory nature. In the course of the late 17th century, the term was extended to secular contexts, referring now not only to the pleasures of the theatres, teahouses and brothels, but also to other popular entertainments in the cities of Kyoto, Osaka and Edo. The last part of the word, e, simply means picture. Many ukiyo-e functioned as advertisements for theatrical performances or sumo tournaments, or they fêted the celebrities of entertainment culture. Portraits of actors in their latest roles, along with those of the most popular, trend-setting courtesans, were among the best-selling motifs.
These purely urban amusements had been joined since the 1760s by landscapes. The increasingly mobile population were familiar with many of the places depicted at first hand, but even when they were not, they could use the printed "views" to form an impression of the places they had heard about in stories and poems. The lay members of poets' circles in the field of haikai and kyo - ka satirical poems - Hiroshige was one - often used privately distributed prints or illustrated books to depict sites or districts known for their seasonal attractions, and they worked together with woodblock print artists to this end. Some luxury editions of poetry from the 1820s concentrated on Edo, and soon afterwards views of this city, with its one million inhabitants and respected culture, became one of the central themes of ukiyo-e prints. Hiroshige was the undisputed master of this art form. The colors, sites and compositional principles he selected in the One Hundred Famous Views of Edo fascinated the local clientele to such an extent that each print had to be reprinted between ten and fifteen thousand times. As the posthumously compiled table of contents (page 51) mentions in its title cartouche (on a red ground), the series is the artist's most prestigious achievement (issei ichidai). Hiroshige's predominance in the landscape genre was quickly recognized by European painters and art dealers. The print Bamboo Quay by Kyo-bashi Bridge inspired, among others, the painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), who was a collector of Japanese objects in general and Hiroshige's prints in particular. The oil painting Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Old Battersea Bridge, created between 1872 and 1875, bears witness to Whistler's confrontation with the atmospheric evening mood, the low vantage point and the marked feeling for color combinations that we find in Hiroshige.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4]
Hiroshige. One Hundred Famous Views of Edo
Japanese binding + bookcase 13.4 x 16.7 in., 294 pages
$ 150.00
$ 150.00
Hiroshige's Edo: Masterful ukiyo-e woodblock prints of Tokyo in the mid-19th century
Plum Park in Kameido (detail), 11-1857
Kasumigaseki, 1-1857