Episode 591 – The Artist of the Open Road, Part 1

August 22, 2025

This week, we’re starting a new miniseries on the life of one of the most famous artists in Japanese history: Utagawa Hiroshige. We’ll start off this week with a general discussion of the world of ukiyo-e during the late 1700s before moving into Hiroshige’s early life and his entry into the world of woodblock printing.

You can access the episode via this RSS feed

Note: the “white overlay” issues many of you have been having lately are caused by an issue with my hosting service and how it interacts with WordPress. Hoping for a fix; in the meantime, you can access episodes directly via the link above.

Sources

Haft, Alfred. Hiroshige: Artist of the Open Road

Forer, Matthi. Hiroshige

Courtesan painting a screen, by Torii school founder Torii Kiyonobu. These early ukiyo-e are entirely monochrome.
A kabuki actor. Image by Katsukawa school founder Katsukawa Shunsho. Note the red/grey/black colors; we’ve entered the tricolor phase!
Utagawa Toyoharu’s woodcut of French churches that’s actually an image of the Roman Forum for some reason.
The Antonio Visentini print of the Grand Canal that Toyoharu somehow was able to study.
Toyoharu’s rendition of the Grand Canal, which he ID’s as the “port of Frankai.”
Fireworks over Ryogoku Bridge by Toyoharu. Note the uki-e/three point perspective style.