The Artist

Utagawa Hiroshige

Japanese · 1797 - 1858 · Ukiyo-e

If Hokusai is ukiyo-e's bold drama, Hiroshige is its quiet poetry. The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō walked Edo-period travelers through every weather along Japan's great road — snow at Kanbara, evening rain at Shōno, moonlight over Sarashina. His prints made everyday landscape into art, and a century later Van Gogh copied them out of admiration. They still make some of the most contemplative wall prints you can hang.