Lake at Hakone, from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji

1858

Utagawa Hiroshige

Hiroshige (1797–1858) based his views on a characteristic compositional model in which one element serves as a point of reference to create an effect of depth. In the distance, Mount Fuji symbolically takes the place of the vanishing point. A curving line is addressed with the fukibokashi technique of subtle gradations of ink to give the landscape an atmospheric and poetic character. At the top, the same technique is used for the sky, crowned by an almost abstract band of blue ink. Introduced into Japan by the Dutch in 1829, Prussian (or “Berlin”) blue was such a hallmark of the artist’s style that it was even known as “Blue Hiroshige”.