Hiroshige is an album collecting 19th-century works by Hiroshige Andō, published in the form of accordion-fold edition, which means that its pages have been folded like an accordion. You can enjoy it by turning page after page, but youc an also unfold the whole thing in front of you. The book is bound in cloth, and the set is completed by a booklet with a short biography of Hiroshige and descriptions of all presented works. It all fits into a protective cardboard case.
Hiroshige Andō is the last, and next to Hokusai probably the most famous, master of the ukiyo-e style. The publication collects woodblock prints originally presented in the 1850s, which depict landscapes from Japan’s thirty-six provinces. The artist’s intention was to capture a key moment in Japanese history: the decades before the Meiji Restoration, when the country was just opening up to the world and entering a period of intense industrialization. On the one hand, the engravings depict the stunning nature – sea cliffs, mountain rivers, waterfalls or forest-covered hills – and on the other, the first signs of the aforementioned industrialization – commercial ports or bustling city centers.
