''One Hundred Famous Views of Edo'' (in ja, 名所江戸百景, Meisho Edo Hyakkei) is a series of 119
ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...
prints begun and largely completed by the Japanese artist
Hiroshige
Utagawa Hiroshige (, also ; ja, 歌川 広重 ), born Andō Tokutarō (; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist, considered the last great master of that tradition.
Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format l ...
(1797–1858). The prints were first published in serialized form in 1856–59, with
Hiroshige II
was a Japanese designer of ukiyo-e art. He inherited the name Hiroshige II following the death in 1858 of his master Hiroshige, whose daughter he married. In 1865 he moved from Edo to Yokohama after dissolving his marriage and began using ...
completing the series after Hiroshige's death. It was tremendously popular and much reprinted.
History
![100 views edo 111](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/100_views_edo_111.jpg)
Hiroshige produced designs in the style of the Utagawa school, a 19th-century popular style in
woodblock prints
Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. Each page or image is create ...
, much favoured during his lifetime. Increasingly large series of prints were produced. This trend can be seen in Hiroshige’s work, such as ''
The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō
, in the Hōeidō edition (1833–1834), is a series of ukiyo-e woodcut prints created by Utagawa Hiroshige after his first travel along the Tōkaidō in 1832. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tōkaidō Gojūsan tsugi''" in ''Japan Encyclope ...
'' and ''
The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaidō
''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...
''.
Many publishing houses arose and grew, publishing both books and individual prints. A publisher's ownership of the physical woodblocks used to print a given text or image constituted the closest equivalent to a concept of "copyright" that existed at this time.
Woodblock prints such as these were produced in large numbers in 18th- and 19th-century Japan, created by artists, block cutters and printers working independently to the instructions of specialist publishers. Prints such as these were called
ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...
, which means 'pictures of the floating world'. This world was one of transient delights and changing fashions centred on the licensed pleasure districts and popular theatres found in the major cities of Japan.
In the years 1829–36, a
seven volume illustrated guidebook ''Pictures of famous places of Edo'' (, Edo meishō zue) was published. It was begun by
Saitō Yukio (1737–1799) in 1790 and illustrated very accurately by
Hasegawa Settan
Hasegawa Settan (長谷川雪旦, 1778–1843) was a Japanese artist who lived during the late Edo period, born in Edo.
His given name was Munehide (宗秀), and his art-name was Gengakusai Ichiyōsai (巌岳斎 一陽庵). He was commonly call ...
(1778–1848). The pictures and text describe the important temples and shrines, but also the famous stores, restaurants, tea-houses etc. of
Edo as well as the
Sumida river
The is a river that flows through central Tokyo, Japan. It branches from the Arakawa River at Iwabuchi (in Kita-ku) and flows into Tokyo Bay. Its tributaries include the Kanda and Shakujii rivers.
It passes through the Kita, Adachi, Arakaw ...
and its channels and surrounding landscape.
Hiroshige, in several cases, makes use of this guide for his series of colour prints (see below and within the list). His series covered the place too which the guide didn’t describe, and he drew casual views of Edo. His series is a work that inspired a number of Western artists, including
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...
, to experiment with imitations of Japanese methods.
[Tim Clark, "Hiroshige Utagawa", in ''Makers of Nineteenth-Century Culture'', ed. Justin Wintle, vol. 2 (Routledge, 1981), pp. 292–93.]
The series uses a vertical format which Hiroshige pioneered in his preceding series, ''
Famous Views of the Sixty-odd Provinces
''Famous Views of the Sixty-odd Provinces'' (in Japanese 六十余州名所図会 ''Rokujūyoshū Meisho Zue'') is a series of ukiyo-e prints by the Japanese artist Hiroshige (1797–1858). The series consists of a print of a famous view from each ...
'', and was a departure from the horizontal format used in his previous major print series.
File:Suruga chô.jpg, Suruga-chō by Hasegawa
File:100 views edo 008.jpg, Suruga-chō by Hiroshige
File:Senzoku ike.jpg, Senzoku pond
by Hasegawa
File:100 views edo 110.jpg, Senzoku pond
by Hiroshige
Prints
Key
*No.: number of the print; an alternative order for the summer prints in parentheses
[The main order used in the table is according to (Smith (1986). ''One Hundred Famous Views of Edo''.) and follows by reading the fan-shaped box for summer on the table of contents print in the way of "scattered writing" (''chirashigaki''), i.e. by grouping the titles in sets of three. The alternative order given in parentheses is generally found in early 20th century sources and follows by reading the fan shaped-box for the summer titles in the normal way, i.e. (vertical) line by line.]
*Title: as it appears on the print together with English translation and Japanese reading
*Depicted: major landmarks that appear in the print listed in order of increasing distance from the viewer
*Remarks: some general remarks on the print
*Date: publication year and month (in the pre-1873
Japanese lunisolar calendar) according to the date seal;
intercalary
Intercalation may refer to:
*Intercalation (chemistry), insertion of a molecule (or ion) into layered solids such as graphite
* Intercalation (timekeeping), insertion of a leap day, week or month into some calendar years to make the calendar foll ...
months are preceded with "i"
*Location: place,
ward
Ward may refer to:
Division or unit
* Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward
* Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...
[For views that are not located within the modern ]Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
, the prefecture and city are listed. and coordinates of the viewpoint
*Image: a picture of the print
Notes
References
*
* Forbes, Andrew; Henley, David (2014). ''100 Famous Views of Edo''. Chiang Mai: Cognoscenti Books. ASIN: B00HR3RHUY
* Melanie Trede, ''Hiroshige: 100 Views of Edo''. Taschen, 2007.
* Henry D. Smith, ''Hiroshige: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo''. George Braziller, 1986.
External links
''Hiroshige: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo'' Brooklyn Museum Online Exhibition ''First states of One Hundred Famous Views of Edo''(earliest known prints from the series, which is different to referenced books and wikipedia)
{{DEFAULTSORT:One Hundred Famous Views Of Edo
1850s prints
Print series by Hiroshige