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Introduction

Mountains and Rivers

Scenic Views of Japan
July 10 - November 1, 2009

The landscape has long been an important part of Japanese art and literature. It was first celebrated in poetry, where invoking the name of a famous location, or meisho, was meant to summon a certain feeling. Later, paintings of these same locations would bring to mind their well-known poetic and literary history. Together, the poems and imagery comprised a canon of place and sentiment, as the same meisho were rendered again and again.

During the Edo period (1603–1868) the landscape genre, initially available only to the elite, spread to the medium of woodblock printing, the art of commoner culture. In the 19th century, when most of the works in this exhibition were made, several factors led to the rise of the landscape genre in woodblock prints. Up to this time, the staples of the woodblock print medium had been images of beautiful courtesans and handsome kabuki theater actors.

First among these factors was the rising popularity of domestic travel. The development of a system of major roads allowed many people to travel for both business and pleasure. Woodblock prints of locations along these travel routes could function as souvenirs for those who made the trip or as fantasy for those who could not. Rather than evoking a poetic past, these images of meisho were meant to tantalize viewers into imagining romantic far-off places.

Another factor in the growth of the genre was the skill of two particular woodblock print artists—Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) (whose works are heavily represented here). Hokusai is often credited with initiating the popularity of landscape prints with his well-known series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, which would later inspire Western artists such as Claude Monet. Both artists’ innovative compositions and unusual treatment of the landscape made their works highly sought after; thousands of their prints were made to satisfy the print-buying public.

As the popularity of the landscape genre grew, artists tried to find novel ways to reinterpret the genre, collaborating with each other, combining it with other genres, and referencing and remaking earlier work to turn familiar landscapes into something new. This exhibition follows the landscape in woodblock prints from its traditional connections to classical poetry, through its celebration of famous locations and travel, to artists’ playful riffing on the genre.

Selected Objects

Utagawa Hiroshige

View with dawn clouds, Nihon Bridge, 1855

Katsushika Hokusai

Kintai (Brocade) Bridge, Suo Province (Suo no kuni kintaibashi), ca. 1831-1832

Utagawa Hiroshige

Mie River, Yokkaichi (Yokkaichi miegawa), ca. 1833

Utagawa Hiroshige

Driving rain, Shono (Shono hakuu), ca. 1833

Utagawa Hiroshige

Dawn inside the Yoshiwara, 1857

Hasegawa Tōun, artist

Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers with Chinese and Japanese Poems, 1695

Katsushika Hokusai

Kirifuri falls at Mount Kurokami, Shimotsuke Province (Shimotsuke kurokamiyama kirifuri no taki), ca. 1831-1832

Utagawa Hiroshige

The sea at Satta, Suruga Province, 1858
No Image Available

Katsushika Hokusai

One hundred views of Mount Fuji: Vol. 3, 1875

Yanagawa Shigenobu

Abe no Nakamaro and a Chinese, probably autumn 1823

Utagawa Hiroshige

Shinagawa, 1854

Katsushika Hokusai

Fine wind, clear weather (Gaifū kaisei), ca. 1829-1833

Katsushika Hokusai

Abe no Nakamaro [701-770] (Abe no Nakamaro), ca. 1835-1836

Sadahiro Utagawa

Yokkaichi, late 1830's

Utagawa Hiroshige

Toi Jewel River, Settsu Province, 1857

Utagawa Hiroshige

Hodogaya: Shinmachi Bridge (Hodogaya shinmachi-bashi), ca. 1833

Utagawa Hiroshige

Vesper bell, Mii Temple (Mii no bansho), ca. 1835
No Image Available

Katsushika Hokusai

One hundred views of Mount Fuji: Vol. 2, 1875

Katsushika Hokusai

Hodogaya on the Tokaido (Tokaido hodogaya), ca. 1829-1833

Utagawa Hiroshige

Shinobazu Pond (Shinobazu no ike), ca. 1836

More objects +

Exhibition Checklist

Mountains and Rivers : Scenic Views of Japan

July 10 - November 1, 2009
View Checklist PDF

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