Publisher's Synopsis
The Aritaya Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road, Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi, 東海道五十三次之内, is one of the most beautiful of Hiroshige's huge production of landscape print series in spite of its small size. It is only abt 10 x 15 cm (with variations), Yotsugiri yokoban (quarter ōban).
It is also unusual in that it is a veritable full course and manual in landscape print design. It is a very rewarding study.
All the way through Hiroshige follows certain design principles of proportion of elements, arranging elements and views by diagonals and parallels and balancing of color elements.
Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese: 歌川 広重), also called Andō Hiroshige (in Japanese: 安藤 広重;) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. He was born 1797 and died 12 October 1858.
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk tales; travel scenes and landscapes; flora and fauna; and erotica. The term ukiyo-e (浮世絵) translates as "picture[s] of the floating world".
Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format landscape series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō, which is the subject of this book, and for his vertical-format landscape series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.
Compared to most of his other Tōkaidō series Hiroshige in Aritaya focus on letting the landscape tell the story instead of letting people or legend do that, although this is not followed through completely.
