Hiroshige III was an artist active from the late Edo period through the mid-Meiji era (from the 1860s to 1894).
His greatest achievement was becoming the leading figure in kaika-e (prints of modernization), which documented the rapidly changing urban landscape of Meiji Japan. Railways, horse-drawn carriages, Western-style buildings, and gas lamps—scenes of Edo transforming into “Tokyo”—were vividly depicted through landscape techniques inherited from Hiroshige. In particular, his frequent use of brilliant red aniline dyes, newly imported from the West at the time, was embraced with great enthusiasm as a symbol of the energy and dynamism of the new era.
In addition to landscapes, he also produced notable works in series introducing regional products, as well as in genre scenes. In contrast to the poetic stillness of the first Hiroshige’s landscapes, Hiroshige III can be described as an artist of “movement,” powerfully capturing the bustle and vitality of the Civilization and Enlightenment period.
His greatest achievement was becoming the leading figure in kaika-e (prints of modernization), which documented the rapidly changing urban landscape of Meiji Japan. Railways, horse-drawn carriages, Western-style buildings, and gas lamps—scenes of Edo transforming into “Tokyo”—were vividly depicted through landscape techniques inherited from Hiroshige. In particular, his frequent use of brilliant red aniline dyes, newly imported from the West at the time, was embraced with great enthusiasm as a symbol of the energy and dynamism of the new era.
In addition to landscapes, he also produced notable works in series introducing regional products, as well as in genre scenes. In contrast to the poetic stillness of the first Hiroshige’s landscapes, Hiroshige III can be described as an artist of “movement,” powerfully capturing the bustle and vitality of the Civilization and Enlightenment period.
