Hiroshige, artist of the open road.

British Museum until September 7

 

 

Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) lived as Japan shifted from the isolationism that characterised the shogun-dominated Edo period towards opening up to the world.

It was also an era when domestic travel came into fashion, helped by the most important highway of the day: the Tokaido (eastern coast road), which ran for 300 miles, linking Edo, modern-day Tokyo, the Tokugawa shogun’s military base, with the emperor’s city Kyoto.

Hiroshige’s response to his restive times was a prolific outpouring of beautifully-crafted images that mean art historians rank him as the last great master of ukiyo-e – or the woodblock prints tradition.

He said his work showed “entirely true-to-life landscapes, in order to give others a few moments of pleasure without the inconvenience of a long journey”.

To modern eyes, it is wonderfully idealised, but that could be chiefly because Hiroshige captured a Japan now lost.

In any case, it’s the painstaking opposite of the Instagram age and the serene antidote we all need.  It’s also the British Museum’s first exhibition devoted to Hiroshige, based on the prints it already owned and a gift and loans from the American Hiroshige collector Alan Medaugh, as well as other loans.

Collecting Hiroshige is a venerable tradition.  One of the consequences of the opening up of Japan after Hiroshige’s death was increased trade and a vogue for Japanisme.

Vincent van Gogh was among those who collected Hiroshige and used it to inspire his own art, which is one of the reasons Hiroshige’s prints seem so familiar.

The joy of the British Museum exhibition is that it takes us back to the original, beginning with a portrait of Hiroshige, dressed as a Buddhist monk, and an introduction to the process of Japanese block-making, complete with a rare, surviving original drawing: usually the master  woodblock-cutter destroyed the drawing as he cut through it to create the woodblock.

One of the central series of Hiroshige’s output is “The Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido” that depicts the stops along the way that linked the two capitals.

“Morning View of Nihonbashi” is an atmospheric portrayal of the first station as bustling fishermen shoulder their loads beneath a red-tinged early sky.

Among print designers, Hiroshige is unusual not least in coming from the samurai class, but this does not prevent him from conveying the texture of ordinary life with humour and humanity.  The many engaging details include a woman holding a fan in her teeth so she can adjust her sash.

It’s also tempting to credit Hiroshige with beginning the Japanese love of the cute with his appealing long-eared owl and rabbits beneath the moon.

He courted popular appeal by designing fans, especially the ovoid, or Uchiwa fan, of which he is thought to have designed at least 600, more than any other artist.

While the ovoid fan was the simplest to decorate, the exhibition also includes an example of a folding fan that shows Hiroshige’s deft adaptation to the format as a brothel-owner is followed by a long line of apprentice courtesans.  Today, the matter-of-fact openness of the procession seems shocking, but for the woodblock artists, courtesans were everyday subject-matter.

Hiroshige’s last great series of views was “100 Famous Views of Edo”, which stands out for focusing on a large single object in the foreground, such as an eagle or a fish.

It also includes “The Plum Garden at Kameido”.  Beside it is a grid drawn by Van Gogh to help him create his own version of this particular angle on plum trees as the exhibition ends with Hiroshige’s enduring influence.

Barbara Lewis © 2025.