Japan Art and Hiroshige: Sumida River and Snow
Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
Ando Hiroshige (1797-1858) is a highly acclaimed Japanese artist. In this article, the focus is on the Sumida River in the snow.
The British Museum says, “He started producing landscape prints in the early 1830s, establishing his own unique style with the series ‘Famous Places in Edo’ (Ichiyusai signature) and ‘Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Highway’ of 1832-3. He continued to excel at views of famous places throughout his career and managed to express in great detail the poetic sensibility inherent in the climate and topography of Japan and the people who lived there.”
Hiroshige’s stunning art of the Sumida River in the snow (during his lifetime) was becoming an illusion from the 1950s to the early 1970s concerning rapid economic development. Naturally, this river was neglected before the 1950s. However, the pace of environmental devastation was gathering negatively during the early decades of the post-war period.
Today, the Sumida River is entering a period of regeneration. Accordingly, the Sumida River basin serves approximately three million people in the immediate environs – and provides a place for people to escape skyscrapers and endless buildings.
International artists including Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky (1875-1957), Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), Van Gogh (1853-90), Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), Édouard Manet (1832-1883), Claude Monet (1840-1926), and others were inspired by Hiroshige.
Hiroshige famously wrote:
I leave my brush in the East,
And set forth on my journey.
I shall see the famous places in the Western Land.
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