Hiroshige

Hiroshige was born in 1797 and died October 12, 1858. He died during an outbreak of Cholera. Similar to Hokusai, Hiroshige was also a Ukiyo-e artist. He was one of the last great wood-block artists. However as a kid he was taught to be a firefighter because his father was one and the position was hereditary. His parents both died when he was 12, leaving him orphaned and leaving him to take over his fathers position as firefighter.

 He is also said to be greatly influenced by Hokusai, his older contemporary and rival. Both Hokusai and Hiroshige lived in Edo, modern day Tokyo. He is well known for his various landscape artworks. As an artist, Hiroshige went through different stages of art styles. As a young kid he mainly created sketches of people like the elders who taught him did. he created many different figures such as actors, girls, Samurai, or warriors.

The next stage of his art was after his student years and he started becoming well known because of his landscape works of art. His landscapes are all views of Japan and they show nature, including animals, flowers, and other objects in nature. He took a trip through Japan and stayed at 53 different places along the way, drawing everything he saw on the trip. Hokusai created the pure landscape pieces and Hiroshige adopted this idea and created landscapes that had very little and small people. They would highlight certain elements and captured the very essence of what Hiroshige saw and created a great composition. Hiroshige is mainly known for these types of landscapes and they are what made him well known.

The last stage of Hiroshige's art career was a mixture of the first two stages. he created landscapes where the people were a big part of the painting and not just small insignificant parts. Hiroshige's art was quite popular in Japan but they also spread and were in high demand in the western nations such as Britain. Due to the ability to mass produce the woodblock art, it spread quickly and was in higher demand as more people saw the art. Also due to mass production, the price was not too high and it was affordable to mostly everyone in Japan, this created the idea of filling houses with art. Hiroshige's art was popular in many areas and the more people saw his work the more they wanted it.

Some people believe that due to the increased production of his works resulted in a lower quality of his work. Two years before his death from Cholera he retired from the world to become a Buddhist monk. As a Buddhist monk he continued to paint. He was buried in a Zen Buddhist temple. His art is popular all over the world now and was still popular in various places during his time.

Websites used:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/266818/Hiroshige
http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Article/1082078
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifty-three_Stations_of_the_T%C5%8Dkaid%C5%8D