It’s a peculiar thing, the way certain art, at a certain moment, feels less like something to be looked at and more like a living thing, an environment you can step into. This is the feeling that stayed with me after leaving the British Museum’s Hiroshige: Artist of the Open Road. The show is gone now, a shame that's one of the unfortunate downsides of the vast collection at the British Museum.
This wasn't a collection of objects to be catalogued and admired from a safe distance; it was an invitation, an almost virtual journey into a world that was created by amazing craftsmanship using wood, paper and ink.
Up until the last couple of years I had a kind of lazy appreciation of Ukiyo-e print (the pretty pictures of floating worlds) that reduces craftsmen like Hiroshige to one of scenic postcards or an image on a poster. But this exhibition, the first of its kind at the British Museum and the first in London in a quarter-century, was a defiant refutation of that notion. It was a dense, engrossing argument for his and the style of traditional printing techniques.
It was a journey through Japan, a snapshot into everyday life captured by someone who came from a family of Samurai who crossed society and reflected both rich and poor in his work. In a time when Japan was changing from its traditions to creeping western influences, Hiroshige was one of Japan's most prolific and popular artists.
Presented not just through the famous, monumental Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō or the panoramic "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo" (although seeing those, in their original, vibrant state, was really fascinating and breathtaking) but through the quiet, intimate work that revealed the true scope of his sensibility.
(Woodblock prints from Utagawa Hiroshige's renowned series, "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo)
What strikes you, what holds you captive and forces you to slow down, are the details. Not the grand sweep of a distant mountain, but the individual faces in a bustling inn, each with a flicker of emotion or boredom, exhaustion, a private joke. It's not even the almost impossibly fine lines of a kimono, a pattern so intricate you feel you could reach out and trace it with your finger. It's the precision of a master but infused with an almost journalistic empathy. He didn't just print landscapes; he captured the people who moved through them. He showed you the travellers exhausted from the road, the humble shopkeepers, the lovers passing in the street. The museum did a fantastic job at making you feel like a traveller on its journey through the country. This was life in Edo-period Japan, not as a history lesson but as a lived experience with an almost comic strip aesthetic, in fact you can see the direct influence on cartoon strips like those drawn by Hergé.
The world of Tintin, brought to life by Hergé, captivated readers for years (including me visiting the museum in Brussels). His distinctive "Ligne Claire" (Clear Line) style, characterised by bold outlines, minimal shading and a focus on visual storytelling, is instantly recognisable. It surely owes a debt to the ancient art of Japan, particularly the ukiyo-e masters like Utagawa Hiroshige.
(The Blue Lotus" (Le Lotus Bleu), one of the classic Tintin adventures by Hergé. )
At the heart of "Ligne Claire" is its elegant simplicity. Every line feels purposeful, every detail meticulously placed. This deliberate approach to drawing finds a striking parallel in Japanese woodblock prints, especially those from the ukiyo-e genre. These prints, which flourished from the 17th to the 19th centuries, prioritised strong outlines, flat areas of colour and dynamic compositions.
When we look at a work by Hergé, such as a panel from The Blue Lotus or Explorers on the Moon, we can almost feel the influence of artists like Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige
( "Bamboo Yards, Kyōbashi Bridge" a woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige )
Hiroshige was a master of conveying atmosphere and depth with seemingly effortless lines. His ability to capture the essence of a scene – a bustling street, a tranquil river. a snow-covered village – using precise, economical strokes resonates deeply with Hergé's own visual philosophy. The focus on horizon lines, the careful arrangement of elements within a frame and the ability to evoke emotion through form rather than heavy shading, are shared characteristics.
("Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake, Utagawa Hiroshige's famous woodblock print)
However, it's crucial to note that Hergé himself never explicitly stated a direct inspiration from Hiroshige. While he was certainly aware of Japanese art and its impact on European artists of his time (one I'll explore in a bit), the direct link remains a compelling speculation rather than a documented fact.
Back to the exhibition, the other great thing about seeing art live is the technical brilliance, something often lost in reproductions. The curators were savvy enough to highlight it, to draw my attention to the subtle magic of the prints themselves. The rich, almost impossibly deep Prussian blue, a colour that seems to hum with an inner light and the bokashi effect, a soft, painterly gradation of colour that gives the prints their atmospheric depth.
It pushed beyond Japan, following Hiroshige's influence to Europe, an influence that was surprising to me. The inclusion of Vincent van Gogh's copies of his prints was a really interesting point and showed how one master can influence another. On a direct homage to Hiroshige's "Bridge in the Rain," you had the frantic, explosive energy of Van Gogh, who saw in Hiroshige's calm, deliberate compositions something essential, a new way of seeing the world. He was a student, a devotee, a man who saw in the meticulous world of a Japanese master a kind of spiritual kinship. It shows art’s ability to leap across oceans and centuries, to speak a common language of form and feeling
( "Bridge in the Rain (after Hiroshige)" by Vincent van Gogh)
Over the past 18 or so months I've really become engrossed in all types of hand printed techniques and have been experimenting with all types of printing methods from Gelli plates, stencils and linocuts. So the work on display really resonated and inspired me, so much so I'm planning my next big project around it.
It was an argument for the lasting power of prints, a medium so often relegated to the sidelines and a necessary correction to the idea that a master like Hiroshige can be fully appreciated through a mere book or a digital image.
It was a journey I felt fortunate to have taken and the shame is that so many others will never know what it was like to be on that open road. The British Museum, in assembling this, did more than curate; it resurrected a world, if only for a few short months.