Perhaps you have to wash away the lead from the tragic ups and downs of the four seasons of the world to become an artist

Utagawa Hiroshige 1797 – 1858

Japanese ukiyo-e printmaking artist whose works are mainly landscape and humanistic sketches. In the 19th century, Utagawa Hiroshige and Katsushika Hokusai dominated the ukiyo-e trend for almost 50 years. Unlike Hokusai, who is devious and sometimes crazy, Utagawa Hiroshige focuses more on the beauty of daily life. He likes to capture the inadvertent moments of passers-by and depict them as soft and thoughtful paintings as silk. He does not seek shocking visions that will make the viewer stunned, and those who see his work often show a shallow smile.

In his later years, Utagawa decided to retire from the world and convert to Buddhism. It was then that he began to create the famous series of prints, the Famous Edo Hundred Views. Living next to the Buddha, what is recorded in these hundred scrolls is the real spring, summer, autumn and winter on earth.

Plum Estate, Kameido, Umeya Kamedo

This early spring garden view is the thirtieth of the 100 Edo Hundred Views, and the picture shows dazzling and unusual colors, and the plum blossoms seem to want to drive away the last traces of darkness of winter, and the branches are covered with white without any shade. The plum-red sky is clearly the excitement of people to welcome the spring day, and the fading hue evokes a tranquility in the enthusiasm.

Utagawa has re-circulated a large number of authentic works, with a total of about 5,400 paintings. Given that the essence of ukiyo-e is not a literary school that relies on funding, its way of survival is entirely commercial. Utagawa's artistic achievements in life were inseparable from his commercial success. His work was widely disseminated as far as Europe across the ocean, deeply influencing a generation of famous French painters.

(The following painting is also one of the paintings that arrived in Europe that year, and one of the paintings that Van Gogh copied is also this painting))

Sudden Shower Over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake, bridge house rainstorms

The fifty-eighth of the Edo Hundred Views, like the other paintings in this series, Utagawa makes the picture turbulent and dramatic through its unconventional diagonal composition. The top and bottom of the picture are covered in black, and the closer you get to the little people on the bridge, the more saturated the color becomes, allowing the viewer's attention to focus on the bridge.

More than two-thirds of the painting is occupied by torrential rain, and the oppressive feeling of the storm in the summer, as well as the sense of freedom and power of the rainstorm, suddenly emerges, and the small figures on the bridge can hardly resist the rain.

Such paintings, which show people's feelings, are sought after by many French Impressionists, and Van Gogh also reproduced this work in oil paintings.

Fireworks at Ryōgoku Bridge, fireworks between the two countries

The 98th of the 100 Views of Edo. The painting depicts the Ryogoku Bridge in Edo, where people often came to the river to escape the heat. When the hot daylight recedes and the new moon is not yet on, the sky presents its darkest moment after the end of summer. The residual temperature on the surface supports people dressed in summer clothes, living in groups along the river, and using fireworks to bid farewell to the last day of summer.

Under the glow of fireworks, the viewer can see the crowded people on the bridge, as well as the spectators on the river, rocking boats. On a moonless night, the sound of people in the picture is bustling. It was both quiet and noisy, and this was the red dust seen by an old man who had converted to Buddhism.

Kinryūzan Temple, Asakusa, Asakusa Golden Dragon Temple

The ninety-ninth of the Hundred Views of Edo, a painting that combines the dual influences of Europe and Japan. To illustrate the depth of field, Utagawa Hiroshige uses the center perspective method. According to later generations, european perspective may have been introduced to Japan through medical books.

There is also no shortage of Japanese narrative lyrical features in the picture, the main perspective through the temple gate, with the viewer quietly glimpsed the scarlet painted Buddhist buildings, standing permanently in the vast snow. Such a compositional design seems to reflect the painter himself, in the empty world, he saw a door, if you move forward, it is a sacred and warm refuge.