{"id":30323,"date":"2025-04-18T13:33:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T13:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/30323\/"},"modified":"2025-04-18T13:33:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T13:33:14","slug":"van-goghs-love-of-hiroshige-the-japanese-master-of-the-landscape-will-be-reflected-in-a-british-museum-exhibition-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/30323\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Gogh\u2019s love of Hiroshige, the Japanese master of the landscape, will be reflected in a British Museum exhibition – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

The British Museum\u2019s exhibition on the Japanese master printmaker Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) will include Van Gogh\u2019s own copy of a print which he used in a painting in homage.<\/p>\n

Hiroshige: Artist of the Open Road<\/a> (1 May-7 September) is to showcase the work of one of the 19th-century\u2019s greatest Japanese artists, with over 100 prints (many from the American collector Alan Medaugh). Although Van Gogh plays a secondary role in the London exhibition, the British Museum has secured rare loans which emphasise how Japanese art inspired avant-garde European artists.<\/p>\n

It was while Van Gogh was living in Paris in 1886-88 that he discovered Japanese art, buying over 600 prints from the dealer Siegfried Bing. Most of these survive at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, and they include no fewer than 78 by Hiroshige.<\/p>\n

Van Gogh\u2019s tribute to Hiroshige is expressed most dramatically in two paintings that were based on the Japanese artist’s prints. The first was inspired by Hiroshige\u2019s The Plum Garden at Kameido (1857), an early morning view of blossom in a district in Edo (now Tokyo).<\/p>\n

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Van Gogh\u2019s own copy of Hiroshige\u2019s print The Plum Garden at Kameido (1857) and Van Gogh\u2019s damaged squared-up tracing used for his painting (October-November 1887)<\/p>\n

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)<\/p>\n

Van Gogh\u2019s copy of the print<\/a> of The Plum Garden at Kameido will be on display in the British Museum exhibition, on loan from Amsterdam. The Dutch artist\u2019s own copies of Japanese prints are only very occasionally lent by the Van Gogh Museum, for conservation reasons, and this particular one has been loaned only once, when it went to Hamburg in 2002.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Van Gogh\u2019s copy of Hiroshige\u2019s print has long ago faded, but this reflects the fact that during the Dutchman’s time in Paris Japanese prints were inexpensive and treated casually. Van Gogh paid an average of 15 centimes\u2014the French currency of the time\u2014per print, not much more than the price of a coffee. Copies of The Plum Garden at Kameido typically now sell for around \u00a350,000.<\/p>\n

Having acquired a copy of the print, Van Gogh made a tracing<\/a> of the composition. He then squared it up, enlarging it slightly for his painting. This tracing is also coming to the British Museum.<\/p>\n

In his painting, Van Gogh diverged from Hiroshige\u2019s composition by adding two prominent vertical strips of Japanese characters on the sides. These are real Japanese words, but taken from other prints and are unrelated to the garden scene. Van Gogh presumably added them to emphasise that it was a Japanese-inspired work.<\/p>\n

It should come as no surprise that Van Gogh chose to depict a blossom scene, since they are common in Japanese art and he himself loved flowering trees in spring. Soon after his move to Arles, in early 1888, he made more than a dozen paintings of fruit blossom.<\/p>\n

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Hiroshige\u2019s print Sudden Shower over Ohashi and Atake (1857) and Van Gogh\u2019s painting Bridge in the Rain (October-November 1887)<\/p>\n

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)<\/p>\n

Van Gogh\u2019s other painting directly inspired by Japanese art was based on Sudden Shower over Ohashi and Atake<\/a> (1857), another Edo view. Hiroshige has depicted the riverscape from three viewpoints: looking down at the bridge, across to the opposite shore and up to the dark clouds.<\/p>\n

The resulting painting by Van Gogh, Bridge in the Rain<\/a> (October-November 1887), also has a border with Japanese characters. This frame-like device, in red and green, is in complementary colours which Van Gogh loved to use. Unfortunately neither of the Van Gogh paintings based on Hiroshige prints were available for the British Museum exhibition (they were last lent outside Amsterdam around 35 years ago).<\/p>\n

The inspiration continued after Van Gogh left Paris. He was probably thinking of Hiroshige\u2019s streaks of falling water when be made one of his last paintings, Rain – Auvers<\/a> (July 1890).<\/p>\n

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Van Gogh\u2019s Rain – Auvers (July 1890)<\/p>\n

National Museum Wales, Cardiff<\/p>\n

Hiroshige prints also feature in Van Gogh\u2019s portraits of P\u00e8re Julien Tanguy, a friend in Paris who sold paint supplies. All the works in the background of the painting<\/a> are Japanese images. The blossom scene in the upper-right corner is Hiroshige’s Ishiyakushi: The Yoshitsune Cherry Tree near the Noriyori Shrine<\/a> (1855). The upper centre image of Mount Fuji is an amalgam of two Hiroshige prints: Yoshiwara: The Field of Floating Islands in the Fuji Marsh<\/a> (1855), with its flock of birds, and The Sagami River<\/a> (1858). Van Gogh owned copies of all three prints. In a drawing<\/a> of Tanguy (October-December 1887), a Mount Fuji scene appears in the background.<\/p>\n

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Van Gogh\u2019s painting Portrait of P\u00e8re Tanguy (October-December 1887), with Japanese prints, and drawing Portrait of P\u00e8re Tanguy (October-December 1887), with a Hiroshige print of Mount Fuji in the background (neither are in the British Museum exhibition)<\/p>\n

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation) and Mus\u00e9e Rodin, Paris (Alamy stock photo)<\/p>\n

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Hiroshige\u2019s Yoshiwara: The Field of Floating Islands in the Fuji Marsh (1855), The Sagami River (1858) and Ishiyakushi: The Yoshitsune Cherry Tree near the Noriyori Shrine (1855)<\/p>\n

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)<\/p>\n

The British Museum exhibition will include one of Van Gogh\u2019s drawings from its own collection which was influenced by Japanese art, The Countryside seen from Montmajour<\/a> (July 1888). Van Gogh wrote of this drawing: \u201cIt does NOT look Japanese, and it\u2019s actually the most Japanese thing that I\u2019ve done.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Van Gogh\u2019s The Countryside seen from Montmajour (July 1888)<\/p>\n

British Museum, London<\/p>\n

As the British Museum curator Alfred Haft explains, the drawing pulls the viewer through a \u201crange of viewpoints\u201d, suggesting that \u201cEuropean perspective is not the only way to endow a landscape picture with a sense of sweeping depth\u201d.<\/p>\n

Van Gogh was among many avant-garde artists to be inspired by Hiroshige in the late-19th century. Others included James Whistler, Auguste Rodin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas, Henri Rivi\u00e8re, Th\u00e9o van Rysselberghe and Arthur Dow. Claude Monet owned no fewer than 48 Hiroshige print, including Sudden Shower over Ohashi and Atake.<\/p>\n

Gauguin\u2019s early masterpiece Vision of the Sermon<\/a> (1888) was probably influenced by the cropped tree in The Plum Garden at Kameido. He may well have seen Van Gogh\u2019s copy of the Hiroshige\u2014and the Dutchman\u2019s painting in homage.<\/p>\n

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Hiroshige\u2019s The Plum Garden at Kameido and Paul Gauguin\u2019s Vision of the Sermon (1887)<\/p>\n

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation) and National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh<\/p>\n

Martin Bailey<\/strong> is a leading Van Gogh specialist and special correspondent for The Art Newspaper. He has curated exhibitions at the Barbican Art Gallery, Compton Verney\/National Gallery of Scotland and Tate Britain.<\/p>\n

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Martin Bailey\u2019s recent Van Gogh books<\/p>\n

Martin has written a number of bestselling books on Van Gogh\u2019s years in France: The Sunflowers Are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece (Frances Lincoln 2013, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>), Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln 2016, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>), Starry Night: Van Gogh at the Asylum (White Lion Publishing 2018, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>) and Van Gogh\u2019s Finale: Auvers and the Artist\u2019s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln 2021, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>). The Sunflowers are Mine (2024, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>) and Van Gogh\u2019s Finale (2024, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>) are also now available in a more compact paperback format.<\/p>\n

His other recent books include Living with Vincent van Gogh: The Homes & Landscapes that shaped the Artist (White Lion Publishing 2019, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>), which provides an overview of the artist\u2019s life. The Illustrated Provence Letters of Van Gogh has been reissued (Batsford 2021, UK<\/a> and US<\/a>). My Friend Van Gogh\/Emile Bernard provides the first English translation of Bernard\u2019s writings on Van Gogh (David Zwirner Books 2023, UK<\/a>and US<\/a>).<\/p>\n

To contact Martin Bailey, please email vangogh@theartnewspaper.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Please note that he does not undertake authentications.<\/p>\n

Explore all of Martin\u2019s adventures with Van Gogh here<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The British Museum\u2019s exhibition on the Japanese master printmaker Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) will include Van Gogh\u2019s own copy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[18095,748,18097,393,4884,257,16,15,18096],"class_list":{"0":"post-30323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-adventures-with-van-gogh","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-british-museum","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-vincent-van-gogh"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114359225895451564","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}