Size:9" x 12" (Image: 7.13" x 10.5") Utagawa (also called Ando) Hiroshige is recognized as one of the last great masters of the ukiyo-e tradition. Literally, "pictures of the floating world," ukiyo-e had largely emphasized erotic and pop cultural subjects, such as beautiful women, kabuki actors, and scenes from history and folk tales, but Hiroshige—following Hokusai—chose to specialize in landscapes and travel series which dovetailed with the rising popularity of tourism in Edo Japan. It is estimated that he created more than 5,000 prints during his lifetime and each is a visual poem unto itself. Asakusa Ricefields and Torinomachi Festival is one of his final series, One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, which he began on retiring from the world to become a Buddhist monk in 1856. According to the Brooklyn Museum, "Hiroshige here presents the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters on the single busiest day of the year. However, from the second story of a brothel, the noise and activity seems far away. In the distance, crossing the Asakusa Ricefields, is a procession celebrating the Torinomachi Festival. On this day, the Yoshiwara was open to everyone, including ordinary women. It was also a monbi, one of the special days on which each courtesan was required by tradition to take a customer—or to pay the fee to the brothel owner if she failed. Casually arranged in the foreground are a courtesan's accouterments. Peeping out from behind the border of a screen are tissue papers delicately known as 'paper for the honorable act.'"
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