Shizuoka city Tokaido Hiroshige Museum of Art, Japan

Shizuoka City Tokaido Hiroshige Museum of Art (東海道広重美術館) is located at the Honjin site of the old Tōkaidō’s 16th post town Yui-shuku. It is the first art museum in Japan to focus on the works of Edo Ukiyo-e Artist, Utagawa Hiroshige. There are approximately 1400 landscape woodblock prints and other works within the Hiroshige collection, including Hiroshige’s masterpieces Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō (Tōkaidō Hoeidō Edition), Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaidō and One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. We aim to promote a new culture of Ukiyo-e through curated exhibitions connecting Ukiyo-e with contemporary works. Visitors can enjoy the magnificence of internationally loved Ukiyo-e works from Edo to the present.

Overview
The Tokaido Hiroshige Museum of Art opened in Yui Honjin Park, the main site of Yukaijuku, a post town in Tokaido in 1994, was named after the Edo period Ukiyoe artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858). It ’s the first museum.

The collection includes the “Honagedo version” of “Tokaido Gokaisanji”, which is nicknamed “Hiroshige / Tokaido Three Roles”, as well as the late masterpiece “Edo Hundred Views of Edo”, as well as “Toshoido” Approximately 1,400 points are counted, centering on masterpieces of landscape prints.

In order to enjoy the splendor of Ukiyo-e art from a new perspective, the exhibition will be changed every month and a variety of special exhibitions will be held focusing on the collections.

In addition, related projects such as lectures and gallery talks will be held as needed.

exhibition
In addition to the “large exhibition room” and “small exhibition room” there are “basic knowledge of ukiyo-e” and “guidance room”. In the entrance hall, there is a “printing experience corner” where you can easily understand Ukiyo-e printing technology, and with the keywords “Hiroshige” and “Tokaido”, you can deepen your understanding of Edo culture. The “Museum Shop” also sells original goods.

Large exhibition room
Tokaido (Ashiya version Tokaido) all 54
A series that Hiroshige worked on in the early fifties. It is called “Tsugaya version Tokaido” because it was published by Kizuna Ashiya Yoshizo. Although it is a small format, the scenery of the traveler and the post is carefully drawn to convey the state of the trip at that time.

Tokaido Goto Sanjinouchi (Honeyodo version of Tokaido) 55 total
A series that Hiroshige worked on when she was 37 years old. Because it was published by Homoto Hondo, it is called the “Honagado Tokaido”. Scenery depictions of highways and lodgings that skillfully incorporate changes in the four seasons and weather have gained popularity and gained popularity.

Fifty-three famous landmarks (Makie Tokaido) (55 photos in total)
Series that Hiroshige worked on when he was 59 years old. It is called “Maki-e Tokaido” because it is drawn in the composition of the samurai. In the Tokaido series drawn by Hiroshige at the end of the painting, many dynamic compositions can be seen from the sky.

Collection

Hiroshige Utagawa “Tokaido Gochu Sannouchi” (Hoeidou version)
Hiroshige Utagawa “Tokaido Gochusan III” (Tokaido with Ryoka)
Hiroshige Utagawa “Tokaido 53 Sannouchi” (Gokusho Tokaido)
Hiroshige Utagawa “Tokaido” (Shusho Tokaido)
Hiroshige Utagawa “53 pairs of Tokaido”
Hiroshige Utagawa and Toyokuni Utagawa “Futoshi 53”
Hiroshige Utagawa “Kiso Kaido Rokupick Kudonouchi”
Hiroshige Utagawa “Hundred Views of Edo”
Hiroshige Utagawa “Fuji Sanjukokukei” etc.

Hiroshige Utagawa
Hiroshige Utagawa (1797)-Ansei Ukiyo-e on September 6, 1858 (October 12, 1858), his real name is Shigeemon Ando. Hiroshige Ando is a family name, Hiroshige is a number, and it is inappropriate to call both together, and Hiroshige himself has never been so named.

He was born to the Ando family, a fire extinguisher in Edo. He became a very popular painter of woodcuts depicting landscapes, and influenced Western painters such as Van Gogh and Monet.

Hiroshige Blue
Utagawa Hiroshige’s works are highly regarded in Europe and the United States for their beauty in blue, especially indigo, as well as bold composition.

This vivid blue is sometimes mistaken for the color of ancient Japanese indigo, but it is the new pigment imported from Europe at that time, Belo indigo, or bitumen. Due to the nature of woodcuts, it is also called “Japan Blue” or “Hiroshige Blue” in the West, similar to Vermeer Blue (Lapis Lazuli) in order to show a brighter color than oil.

Hiroshige Blue was thought to have influenced impressionist painters from France in the latter half of the 19th century and Art Nouveau artists, and was also considered to be one of the factors that produced the fashion of Japonisme at that time.

Tokaido round trip
In Tempo 4 (1833), Tokaido Ichigo-e, a masterpiece, was born. In addition to the goodness of the picture itself, such as the three-dimensional depiction that makes you feel the wind and rain, this work was very well received as a way to get a glimpse of the outside world where people at the time were longing for.

Hiroshige, who was also a shogunate in the fall of 1832 in the previous year of this series, joined the party of the Shogunate (an ambassador for Mima Shingo) and relied on the biography to go to Kamijo (round trip to Tokaido to Kyoto) A tradition that you have had the opportunity to see the scenery is transmitted. On the other hand, there are also theories that people are not actually traveling. There is also a theory that the work was created by transforming a Western painting by Shiba Kohan (proposed by the former director of Izukogen Museum of Art, Ryoun Hatanaka). (There is an external link that states a negative theory for this, “A painting by Shiba Kohan, called the original picture of Hiroshige’s“ Fifty Three Tokaido ””.)

Handwriting
After prints flourished and Ukiyo-e became a printmaker, there were fewer things that could be written on paper and silk with a brush, but Hiroshige was different from prints. I leave a wonderful picture. Famously, more than 200 hand-painted drawings, commonly called “Tendo Hiroshige”, were requested by Tendo Rin. At that time, the financial situation was tight, so they were seeking donations and borrowing money from wealthy merchants and farmers inside and outside the city. In 1851, Hiroshige’s painting was given as an alternative to the repayment. Hiroshige’s perspective is well-known for its influence on post-Impressionist painters, especially Van Gogh (1853–1890). As seen in Hokusai and Utagawa’s founder Toyoharu (1735-1814).