The Brooklyn Museum’s Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo (feat. Takashi Murakami) is more than an exhibition of a renowned 19th-century artist’s woodblock prints. Utagawa Hiroshige’s intimate and comprehensive portrayal of Edo — known today as Tokyo — is coupled with cultural artifacts found in his prints, creating an immersive and dynamic narrative about its urban landscape. The famed contemporary Japanese artist Takashi Murakami’s series of contemporary reinterpretations additionally contributes to the exhibition’s enmeshment of time and place, shedding light on Hiroshige’s lasting legacy and influence on both European art and contemporary Japanese pop culture.
The rare selection of 118 woodblock prints — originally published between 1856 and ’58 — captures a dimensional image of Edo’s socioeconomic and historical underpinnings. Pieces including “Horikiri Iris Garden” (1857), “Maple Trees at Mama, Tekona Shrine and Linked Bridge” (1857), “Meguro Drum Bridge and Sunset Hill” (1857), and “Suijin Shrine and Massaki on the Sumida River” (1856) depict the vibrant cultural landmarks and practices in Edo that persist to this day. The suburban and urban scenes on view, ranging from geishas in textile stores and cotton dyers at work to family picnics under cherry blossoms and sex workers in red-light districts, paint a comprehensive and dynamic portrait through the eyes of the population. By unifying both ends of class hierarchy in his work, he subverts the rigid four-tiered Tokugawa status system that starkly separated nobles and samurai from peasants and merchants. Such works also foreshadow the impact of modernization and industrialization that would occur after his death, which led to more equitable divisions of space in Edo and more unity between differing demographics.
The exhibition’s display of cultural artifacts that are found in the compositions, such as vessels, cooking ware, advertising signs, and clothing, further immerses visitors in the world of 19th-century Edo. The disparity in color, fabric, and badges between higher-class samurai wear and lower-class farmers’ and delivery men’s garb in particular gives life to the class stratification Hiroshige depicts.
In the final room, Takashi Murakami’s reinterpretations of Hiroshige’s prints consider the latter’s impact on Western art and Japanese anime. His 121 screen printings, which mimic the additive color-by-color process of his predecessor’s woodblock printing, show how Hiroshige paved the way for the style of contemporary manga, which also narrates through flat depictions in vibrant colors. In order to maintain the dimensionality of his Superflat prints when enlarged, Murakami incorporates brushstroke-like textures evocative of van Gogh’s style, which also prompts conversation about the Dutch artist’s reinterpretations of Hiroshige’s work. By engaging with other artistic works, Murakami spotlights Hiroshige’s multi-pronged legacy. In the same way that the woodblock printmaker bridges suburban and urban scenes in his work, this exhibition bridges the art historical past and present.
Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo (feat. Takashi Murakami) continues at the Brooklyn Museum (200 Eastern Parkway, Crown Heights, Brooklyn) through August 4. The exhibition is organized by Joan Cummins, Lisa and Bernard Selz Senior Curator, Asian Art, Brooklyn Museum.
