36 More Views

         Last week I introduced Hokusai’s famous series of wood block prints “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji,” and today I’m going to share a few projects inspired by it.  The first and most obvious was another “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji” by Utagawa Hiroshige (Japan, 1797-1858).  In fact, Hiroshige made not one but two sets of 36 views of Mount Fuji.  The series in 1852 was landscape (horizontal) format like Hokusai’s version about twenty years earlier.  Then in 1858 Hiroshige did another set in portrait (vertical) format.  These are my favorite of all!  Before Hokusai’s series, landscape had been a relatively uncommon theme for ukiyo-e wood block prints, but Hiroshige was so inspired that, in addition to his views of Mount Fuji, he’s even more famous for his “Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō” and “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.”

        I could do a whole post on Hiroshige’s Mount Fujis, no doubt, but I’ve restrained myself and selected just a few to share.  (If you want to see more, Wikipedia has a nice list of all 36 of the second set, although only about a third of the first set.)  Generally speaking their coloration is somewhat more subtle than Hokusai’s, and the compositions show a wider range of beautiful scenery, with less emphasis on people in the foreground.  I have included one here with a focus on people, and you can see the level of detail on the cherry blossoms.  I’ve also included just one of Hiroshige’s first series.  In my other examples you can see the emphasis on beautiful landscapes, and I’ve included the one to the left here because it’s particularly different  from most of Hiroshige’s and all of Hokusai’s.  The focus on natural details in the foreground makes for a very different kind of picture.

        Hokusai’s “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji” reached Europe some time around 1856, and his wood block prints made a sensation among European artists.  Monet, Renoir, Degas, Klimt, Manet, and van Gogh were among those who collected his work and were influenced by it.  (To be fair, van Gogh was even more influenced by Hiroshige, even painting his own versions of two of Hiroshige’s views of Edo.)  But one artist who took his inspiration one step farther is Henri Rivière (France 1864-1951).  Rivière encountered Japanese wood block prints in 1888 and taught himself how to make woodcuts in the Japanese style.  In 1902 he published Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower, which was begun as wood block prints but completed and printed for publication by lithography.  From Hokusai Rivière took the idea of using a single famous landmark as a central theme around which to anchor a wide variety of views of the entire surrounding area.  His views range from scenes set on the structure of the Eiffel Tower itself, to scenes in which the Tower is just a small vertical line on the horizon.  Like Hokusai, he covers a range of weather, seasons, and times of day, as well as both pretty landscapes and scenes of everyday labor and industry.  Perhaps most interesting of all, some of his views show the Eiffel Tower while it was under construction between 1887-89.  (You can see one of these, along with my own block print of the Eiffel Tower at my prior post on the Eiffel Tower in block prints.)

        Although these are lithographs and some look more like drawings than others, still, Rivière was clearly coming at this project with a block print aesthetic.  He has a much more limited color palette than Hokusai, which makes all his scenes look a little autumnal, even though the fourth could well be full summer, and the fifth early spring.  For the most part I’ve chosen my favorites from the series, as opposed to demonstrating the full variety of Rivière’s scenes, but you can see them all at the Cleveland Museum of Art.  I do want to point out how subtle the Eiffel Tower is in the park with the ducks.  I like the relatively high level of detail in the Tower's lattice in the final piece.  As for pieces 2 and 4 shared here, they make an excellent transition to my final featured inspiration…

        While taking a walk in 2020 it occurred to me that there’s practically no place in my town from which you can’t see a radio tower.  This reminded me at once of Hokusai’s views of Mount Fuji, and I decided to take a series of photographs of “Thirty-Six Views of the Radio Towers.”  Unlike Mount Fuji or the Eiffel Tower, there are actually a number of radio towers by us, mostly in two areas, but other than that particular, my mission was the same.  I would go through exactly one year, taking pictures of radio towers from all different vantage points in town.  I had fun looking for interesting locations, as well as different weather and time of day… and not surprisingly I soon had far more than 36 pictures.  Indeed, I took hundreds, and even after trying my best to cull them down, I still have about 100.  (But after all, Hokusai did end up doing One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, too, so I guess I’m still following in his footsteps.)

        Today I’m sharing just a selection from the four seasons, as well as demonstrating a small taste of the variety.  Interestingly, my views in some ways have more in common with Rivière’s — his view from the train tracks especially reminds me of some of mine, as does the way the Eiffel Tower is sometimes so subtly present that it’s actually difficult to spot.  One thing that’s quite different about my “36 Views” is that there are almost never any people at all.  Partly this is because (as I mentioned last week) I tend not to want people in my landscapes, but it’s also because I started this project during the covid lockdown, when I just wasn’t around people at all for an entire year!  In fact, the view of the radio towers from North Hill was one I particularly wanted to include in my series, but it wasn’t until July of 2022 that I was once again able to go inside to take a picture.  Indeed, although I envisioned this project as a one-year activity, I have added a few more pictures to the series now and then, when I see something particularly interesting.  Of course, I have no plans of actually doing anything with all these photos.  Since I don’t bill myself as a photographer, I don’t plan to try to exhibit them, or make calendars, or do anything else.  But I did very much enjoy the exercise.

        So I open the invitation to you: is there any landmark, natural or human-made that is particularly meaningful or present in the landscape of your daily life?  Try noticing how it interacts with your environment.  Do you see it as an eyesore or a thing of beauty?  Can you get creative with how you view it?  And what would you come up with if you were to capture 36 iconic views of it?

[Pictures: Aoyama in the Eastern Capital, wood block print by Hiroshige, 1852;

The Sumida Embankment in the Eastern Capital, wood block print by Hiroshige, 1858 (Images from Wikimedia Commons);

View of Fuji san from the Mountains in the Province of Izu, wood block print by Hiroshige, 1858 (Image from The Met);

The Ōtsuki Plain in Kai Province, wood block print by Hiroshige, 1858;

Twilight Hill at Meguro in the Eastern Capital, wood block print by Hiroshige, 1858 (Images from Wikimedia Commons);

De Notre-Dame, color lithograph by Henri Rivière from Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower, 1902;

Frontispiece, color lithograph by Rivière from Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower, 1902;

Du Point-du-Jour, color lithograph by Rivière from Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower, 1902;

From the Quai de Javel, color lithograph by Rivière from Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower, 1902;

Du bois de Boulogne, color lithograph by Rivière from Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower, 1902;

Des Jardins du Trocadéro, l’autumn, color lithograph by Rivière from Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower, 1902 (Images from Cleveland Museum of Art);

Blossoms, photograph by AEGNydam, 2021;

Bees in May, photograph by AEGNydam, 2021;

Arch, photograph by AEGNydam, 2020;

From North Hill, photograph by AEGNydam, 2022;

Old Boat, photograph by AEGNydam, 2020;

Echo Bridge, photograph by AEGNydam, 2020;

Crosswalk, photograph by AEGNydam, 2020;

Winter Cemetary, photograph by AEGNydam, 2020;

Two Points, photograph by AEGNydam, 2021;

February Moonrise, photograph by AEGNydam, 2021;

Up, photograph by AEGNydam, 2021.