Hiroshige: birds and flowers

Abstract

"Although his artistic gifts were recognized while he was still a child, Hiroshige only began to produce what are now considered his masterpieces in the 1830s, when he was well into middle age. Shunning the popular tradition of courtesan subjects from this time on, he concentrated solely on landscape and nature works for which he had a special affinity. During this decade, he created some 5000 bird and flower studies. This genre was one of the most venerable in the hierarchy of subjects in Oriental art. Developed during the Northern Sung period in China, it was a type that was considered to be aristocratic in character. Meticulously rendered, with great attention to detail, bird and flower paintings were not merely intended as showmanship in the miniaturist technique; rather, were careful studies of the principles and workings of the natural universe. Chinese painting was, in fact, a rich source of inspiration for Japanese artists. Hiroshige himself had been trained in this tradition and had even worked in a miniaturist style at one time. Thus, it is not surprising that he was attracted to the bird and flower genre, which he brilliantly translated into the print medium. Working within a limited repertoire of subjects, he endlessly experimented with design and composition in a variety of formats, including ōban, chūban, tanzaku, and fan form. Indeed, Hiroshige's bird and flower prints, where a range of moods are captured through a spectacular use of color, perhaps best demonstrate his poetic and idyllic sense of nature. This edition includes a selection of the finest examples of Hiroshige's bird and flower prints from the renowned Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Collection, now housed at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design."-- Front flap of dust jacket.

Contents

[Table of Contents] -- Foreword / Maggie Bickford -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction / Cynthea J. Bogel -- A Note on the Poems / Alfred H. Marks -- Plates and Commentaries / Israel Goldman -- Bibliography