Hiroshige Fan Prints

Description

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), leading artist of the popular Ukiyo-e school, created many of the most familiar images of pre-modern Japan. Considerably more rare are his designs for fan prints or uchiwa-e, and in Hiroshige the uchiwa-e of the V&A collection are published in their entirety for the first time. It is the largest known group of its kind in the world. Assembled between 1886 and 1919, the collection offers fascinating insights into a relatively uncharted but compelling dimension of Hiroshige's achievement. He was a native of Edo, the bustling urban centre that subsequently became Tokyo, and he lived at a time when travel was becoming an important part of Japanese life. He was to become particularly famous and successful for his landscape prints, as he skilfully portrayed scenes popular amongst the travelling public. He was also adapt at other art subjects, from beautiful bird and flower studies to many fine designs with literary and historical themes. Rich in colour and full of poetry, Hiroshige's works are as captivating today as when they were first created in mid-19th -century Japan. This volume of astonishingly vivid and varied fan prints will be of considerable interest to collectors, students and anyone with a love of Japanese art.

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