This lavishly produced authoritative monograph presents an in-depth view of the life and work of Utagawa Hiroshige, one of Japan’s most revered artists.
Presented in a style as stunning as the prints it celebrates, this survey of Hiroshige tells the fascinating story of the last great practitioner of ukiyoe, or “pictures of the floating world.” Hiroshige is considered to be the tradition’s most poetic artist and his work had a marked influence on Western painting towards the end of the 19th century. Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler were inspired by Hiroshige’s serene depictions of the natural world. Arranged chronologically, this book illustrates through text and magnificent reproductions Hiroshige’s youth and early career; his artistic development in the genre of landscape prints; his depictions of Edo and the provinces; the flower and bird prints; and his many popular books and paintings. It discusses the historic and cultural environment in which Hiroshige flourished and the many reasons his art continues to be revered and imitated. Filled with 300 color reproductions, and featuring a clamshell box and Japanese-style binding, this volume is destined to become the definitive examination of Hiroshige’s oeuvre.
»an excellent overview of the artist’s oeuvre«
Biography
Matthi Forrer
Matthi Forrer is an independent curator and former Curator for Japanese Arts at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, Netherlands. He is the author of numerous books on Japanese art, including Hokusai, Hiroshige, and Hiroshige: Prints and Drawings (all by Prestel).
Quotes
»a beautifully presented new monograph... The reproductions here are stunning, printed on looped paper stock. It is perhaps the finest art monograph of the year.«
»a beautifully bound tome dedicated to woodblock-printer Hiroshige offers a typically Japanese reading of his homeland«