Welcome to the JSNW Members Blog. This is the place to share your views, news and suggestions. Click on the date below each item (its "permanent link") to view all the comments on that item. Click "comments" to leave a comment. Anyone can leave a comment, but if you'd like to post an item on this page, you need to join our blog team. To join our Members Blog team, email the webmaster.
Hiroshige
View of Mount Fuji from Satta Point in the Suruga Bay
Utagawa Hiroshige, Japanese: 歌川広重; 1797 in Edo – October 12, 1858, also sometimes referred to as "Andō Hiroshige" (安藤広重) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, and one of the last great artists in that tradition.
Hiroshige was born in 1797 and named "Andō Tokutarō" in the Yayosu barracks, just east of Edo Castle in the Yaesu area of Edo (present-day Tokyo). His father was Andō Gen'emon, a hereditary retainer (of the dōshin rank) of the shōgun. He was an official within the fire-fighting organization whose duty was to protect Edo Castle from fire.
He died aged 62 during the great Edo cholera epidemic of 1858 (whether the epidemic killed him is unknown) and was buried in a Zen Buddhist temple in Asakusa. Just before his death, he left this poem:
"I leave my brush in the East
And set forth on my journey.
I shall see the famous places in the Western Land."
posted by Message from Japan on Thursday, December 06, 2007 0 comments