Hiroshige was born in 1797 in Edo, Japan (modern Tokyo). He was of a samurai background, and was the great-grandson of Tanaka Tokuemon, who held a position of power under the Tsugaru clan in the northern province of Mutsu. Hiroshige's grandfather, Mitsuemon, was an archery instructor who worked under the name Sairyūken. Hiroshige's father, Gen'emon, was adopted into the family of Andō Jūemon, whom he succeeded as fire warden for the Yayosu Quay area.
Hiroshige went through several name changes as a youth: Jūemon, Tokubē, and Tetsuzō. He had three sisters, one of whom died when he was three. His mother died in early 1809, and his father followed later in the year, but not before handing his fire warden duties to his twelve-year-old son. He was charged with prevention of fires at Edo Castle, a duty that left him much leisure time.
Education
After Andō's parent's deaths, perhaps at around fourteen, Hiroshige - then named Tokutarō - began painting. He sought the tutelage of Toyokuni of the Utagawa school, but Toyokuni had too many pupils to make room for him. A librarian introduced him instead to Toyohiro of the same school. By 1812 Hiroshige was permitted to sign his works, which he did under the art name Hiroshige. He also studied the techniques of the well-established Kanō school, the nanga whose tradition began with the Chinese Southern School, and the realistic Shijō school, and likely the perspective techniques of Western art and uki-e.
Career
Hiroshige's early work, which consisted of actor and courtesan prints, was neither original nor particularly distinguished, and it was only when he turned to landscapes, after Hokusai's great success with his Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji, that Hiroshige found his own unique style and achieved a fame even greater than that of Hokusai.
In 1831 Hiroshige produced his first important work, a set of 10 famous views of Edo. The next year he executed Fifty-three Stages of the Tokaido Road, which established him as the leading printmaker of the day. From that time on he continued to make a huge number of prints until his death.
The subject of virtually all of Hiroshige's mature work was the Japanese landscape, which he portrayed in a lyrical manner with an emphasis upon the misty atmosphere, the picturesque old pines, the sea with its fishing boats, and the green or snow-covered mountains. No other Japanese artist has succeeded in expressing so well the feeling and appearance of Japan, nor has anyone portrayed it with more subtlety and poetry. Hiroshige depicted the landscapes, as well as the people traveling about the country or performing their daily tasks, with such care that they serve as a record of Japanese life of the mid-19th century. Whether he was portraying the ancient capital of Kyoto or the new capital of Edo, the beauty of Lake Biwa, or the Tokaido or Kiso Kaido roads, the artist never tired of representing the varied aspects of his native land.
Of all the many sets of prints produced by Hiroshige, whose total output is estimated at more than 5,000, the finest is without question the Fifty-three Stages of the Tokaido Road, published in 1833 and reprinted innumerable times ever since. This highway, which linked Edo with Kyoto, was the main road of Japan and was used by officials, businessmen, pilgrims, and sightseers who enjoyed its magnificent scenery, for it was flanked by mountains on the north and the sea on the south. Hiroshige himself had traveled it as a member of an official party of the shogunate which had gone to Kyoto in 1832 to present the Emperor with a white horse. During this trip Hiroshige made many sketches, and upon his return he started the designs representing the wayside stations along the road. To the 53 stations he added a print showing the starting point of the journey at the Nihonbashi in Edo and another for the final destination at the Sanjo Ohashi in Kyoto.
Another set which is particularly fine is the Eight Views of Lake Biwa (1834), which gives expression to Hiroshige's sensitive feeling for the moods of nature during different seasons and under various atmospheric conditions. It is the kind of print which was so much admired by such impressionists as Claude Monet and James McNeill Whistler.
Of the works of Hiroshige's later period, by far the most outstanding is Hundred Views of Edo, dating between 1856 and 1858. The quality of this series is uneven, as much of his later work is, but the finest, such as Rain Storm on the Ohashi Bridge and Kinryuzan Temple in Asakusa, are among his most remarkable prints. Next to his landscapes, his best work is his bird and flower prints, called Kacho in Japan.
In 1856, Hiroshige "retired from the world," becoming a Buddhist monk; this was the year he began his One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. He died on January 12, 1858, aged 62 during the great Edo cholera epidemic of 1858.
Achievements
Ando Hiroshige is considered one of the six great masters of the Ukiyo-e school. He is most famous for his landscape prints, which render typically Japanese landscapes in their different moods in a very poetic manner.
Working during the closing decades of the Edo period, Hiroshige represents the last flowering of the Ukiyo-e school. His genius for landscape compositions was first recognized in the West by the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. His print series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō is perhaps his finest achievement.
Cherry blossom Time, People Picknicking at Gotenyama
Snow Dawn at Susaki
Camellia and Bush Warbler
Crayfish and two shrimps
Hibiscus
Small Bird on a Branch of Kaidozakura
Moon, Swallows and Peach Blossoms
The road connecting Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto
The road connecting Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto
The road connecting Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto
Untitled (Two Rabbits, Pampas Grass, and Full Moon)
Yellow bird and cotton rose
Autumn flowers in front of full moon
Iris
Moonlight View of Tsukuda with Lady on a Balcony
Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge at Atake
Eagle Over 100,000 Acre Plain at Susaki, Fukagawa (Juman-tsubo)
Komokata Hall and Azuma Bridge
Ama No Hashidate in Tango Province
Drum Bridge and Setting Sun Hill, Meguro
Folio From the Upright Gojusan Tsuji Tokaido
Itsukushima in Aki Province
Kyobashi Bridge
Yugasan in Bizan Province
A bridge across a deep gorge
A shrine among trees on a moor
A snowy gorge
A vision of Shitamachi
Amanohashidate Peninsula in Tango Province
Ashida
Religion
In 1856 Hiroshige became a Buddhist monk.
Connections
Hiroshige's first wife helped finance his trips to sketch travel locations, in one instance selling some of her clothing and ornamental combs. She died in October 1838, and Hiroshige remarried to Oyasu, sixteen years his junior, daughter of a farmer named Kaemon from Tōtōmi Province.
