Hiroshige at The Phillips Collection

I hope some of our DC area readers have time
to catch this exhibit before it ends on September 4th. I’m disappointed that I learned of it too late and won’t be able
to make it down myself, but it seems worth the trip for any art/travel enthusiasts who can get
there.

East Meets West: Hiroshige at The Phillips
Collection

features Japanese artist Hiroshige’s famous series, “The Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido,” a travelogue of stops
along an ancient highway known as the Tokaido Road, which runs from what is now Tokyo (formerly Edo) to Kyoto.

Hiroshige painted the series circa 1833, after he had traveled the length of the highway the previous year as a
member of a group traveling to the Emperor in Kyoto. Along the way he sketched the scenes, which became the foundation
of his fame as a landscape artist.  The Woodblock Prints of Ando
Hiroshige
is a good place to learn more about the traveling artist and view more of his work. A detailed
bio of his life explains that
Hiroshige was “fond of distant journeyings” and kept diaries along with his sketches as his traveled.

The exhibit features an East/West comparison of
Hiroshige’s influence on Western artists. It is on loan from a private collection so this may be the last opportunity
to see it for quite some time.