The 8 Views is a Chinese artistic and literary theme developed already in the 10th century and then transposed into Japanese culture, where it developed its own independent expression.
Print artist Utagawa Hiroshige as many other Japanese artists took up the issue of 8 Views of Ōmi and again as other Japanese artists he expanded the theme into 8 Views of Kanazawa, 8 Views of Edo Environs and other locations.
The authors introduced the subject with the small volume 8 Views of Ōmi, Kanazawa and Edo Environs. This book treats four versions of the 8 Views of Kanazawa.
It is possible to travel to see the same sites today but the views of Yokohama have little left of the Kanazawa idyll shown by Hiroshige.
Cristina and Eric
Utagawa Hiroshige
Utagawa Hiroshige (in 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, and for his vertical-format landscape series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo with Eisen 1835 - 1842.
The main subjects of his work are considered atypical of the ukiyo-e genre, whose focus was more on beautiful women, popular actors, and other scenes of the urban pleasure districts of Japan's Edo period (1603-1868).
The Edo period was a period with strong feudal control by the Tokugawa shogunate, with stability and economic growth, very closed to outside influence, although methods were imported and applied in a flowering cultural and artistic life.
