Hiroshige

Hiroshige was a very famous landscape painter that did a number woodblock prints, taking after his inspiration, Hokusai. The great Hiroshige was born in Edo (which is modern day Tokyo) in 1797 and died at the age of 61 in 1858 on October 12, from Cholera. At the age of twelve, both of his parents died. Two short years later, Hiroshige accepted the chance to accompany the well known Utagawa painting school. He was originally going to follow his father and be a fire warden, but Hokusai's work inspired him to take up painting, and he is famous throughout Japan because of it.

Hiroshige's first job was a number of illustrations done in a book, in 1818. All the way up until 1830, he made his prints in the original way that he had learned from his original master, Toyohiro Utagawa. His early tasks were mainly illustrating books. Ordinary topics of this time period were kabuki actor's prints, beautiful women and some warrior prints. In 1830, Hiroshige decided to try something new - landscape prints. He began making beautiful, unique prints, that no one had ever seen before. For the next twenty years Hiroshige concentrated his work to landscape paintings.