Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast episode 591, The Artist of the Open Road,

Part 1.

Over the runtime of this podcast, which is becoming long enough now that it's becoming a little

difficult for me to grapple with for existential dread-based reasons, we have talked a lot

about art.

You might recall that quite some time ago, we did an episode on probably the most famous artist in Japanese history, Katshika Hokka, episode 202, so it really was a long time ago.

And Hokkai was, and still is regarded as, an absolute genius.

Not for nothing is the single most famous image he created, the Great Way of Khanagawa,

also one of the most reproduced images in the history of humanity, and possibly one of the most famous works of art just ever.

And if memory serves way back in episode 202, which memory might not serve here because

it has been a while, I went off script at one point and said that Hoeksy was personally my

favorite woodblock print artist. And I still stand by that, to be clear, again, there's a reason

he's as famous as he is. But here's the thing,

dear listeners, it's been a while, longer again than I care to admit. My own aesthetic opinions

have changed, particularly as I've started very recently getting into photography and thought

more about composing images and framing scenes and making artistic choices or unfaithfulness

to reality and all that pretentious nonsense. And as I've pretentiously matured as an artist,

I've also come to appreciate more the work of a man who really is the only name you could

utter in the same breath as Katzhikaka, Uttagawa Hiroshiige.

In many ways, Hiroshiige's career is as legendary as Hokksai's, though the two men were

quite different.

Hoxai, you might remember, was famous more than anything for his continual process of

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