Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) Japan, around 1833-1834
(approx. 25 x 36 cm) collection Leskowicz © Fondation Jerzy Leskowicz
Drawing is the bare-bones of Visual Art. I cannot think of any great artists who weren’t exquisite draftsmen. Everything begins with a sheet of paper. The paper is your space. Is it going to be round or rectangular? Vertical or horizontal? How you will allocate your elements within? How much variety can there be in a line?
Back in October 2019, I was travelling in Paris for my monthly lesson with one of my singing teachers, soprano Christiane Patard. It happened that on that day, it was the last day of the exhibition Sur la route du Tokaido at the Guimet Museum. This colour print by Hiroshige was one of my favourites because it is beautifully simple without being simplistic. There are hidden geometrical axes and some optical games. The figures have no shadows. Therefore, one might think that Hiroshige was not interested in depicting volume. But, the tip of the volcano that goes out of Hiroshige’s chosen borders of his drawing space, in combination with the subtle red, blue and black horizontal regions, create a complete three-dimensional space.
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