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The show
The exhibition line promoted by the Civic Museum on the most important international artists who have been able to express their greatness to the maximum through engraving adds a new stage, this time moving from Europe to the Far East, to tell the story of the ukiyo-e woodcut technique and of some of the most important masters who dedicated themselves to it - Hokusai and Hiroshige - who also became well known in Europe when some of their works were an inspiration for the impressionists and more generally for the artists who from the mid-nineteenth century proved to be more open to the renewal of painting.
Ukiyo-e, a term that literally means "images of the floating world", describes the artistic genre, which flourished between the 17th and 19th centuries , which initially had a hedonistic connotation associated with the pleasant moments that city dwellers spent dedicating themselves to the transitory pleasures of life , and from this perspective the depiction of the landscape was linked to the function of background for the characters portrayed. However, starting from the 1830s, with the publication of Hokusai's Thirty-six Views of Fuji and Hiroshige's Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō , the depiction of landscape suddenly took on a new importance, becoming the main subject of ukiyo-e. A novel aspect investigated and documented by the exhibition set up in the rooms of the Civic Museum, which opens with a room dedicated to Katsushika Hokusai . Undisputed master of Japanese art, Hokusai had enormous success already in his lifetime, above all thanks to some of the most famous series, including the aforementioned Thirty-six Views of Fuji , which are documented here by a selection of the best-known images, including a version of A Great Wave Off the Coast of Kanagawa, perhaps the best-known ukiyo-e work in the world, so loved and reproduced in such a number of copies that it wore out the wood and forced the publishers to create new wooden matrices based on the drawing original by Hokusai, in order to be able to produce new originals, as documented in this specific case.
In the following rooms the story focuses mainly on the work of Utagawa Hiroshige , the greatest Japanese landscape painter, who equaled Hokusai himself in skill and fame, and with whose work it is possible to admire an almost direct comparison thanks to the series also by him dedicated to the famous volcano symbol of Japan. Continuing the journey, in addition to other well-known series by Hiroshige, the main part of the exhibition is dedicated to the depiction of the Tōkaidō : the Tōkaidō road, which connected the shogun's capital, Edo, to that of the Emperor, Kyōto, was the main route of travel and trade in ancient Japan. For many artists it was the inspiration to depict views and landscapes celebrating the natural beauty of their country, for Hiroshige himself it was one of the favorite subjects on which he tried his hand several times also to represent the same stations years later, and in the exhibition it will be possible to admire different series dedicated to this subject: from the first version in horizontal ōban format, to the vertical one, from the one with two brushes to the one in parallel. The exhibition ends with a room dedicated to Hiroshige II , the master's heir and successor in the Utagawa school.
The over 120 works on display , including two important triptychs and some original volumes containing the complete series, are flanked by some objects: tsuba, inrō and a precious kimono decorated with images inspired by ukiyo-e, to underline how much the landscape influenced Japanese culture thanks to the work of Hiroshige.
The exhibition, created thanks to the precious collaboration of the Museum of Oriental Art of Venice and the loan of generous collectors, is accompanied by a catalog that includes photographs of all the works on display and texts by Davide Caroli, curator of the exhibition and director of the Civic Museum of the Capuchins of Bagnacavallo, by Marta Boscolo Marchi, director of the Museum of Oriental Art of Venice and by Marco Fagioli, one of the greatest scholars of the authors of Japanese prints.
Opening time:
Tuesday and Wednesday 3.00pm-6.00pm Thursday 10.00am-12.00pm / 3.00pm-6.00pm
Friday, Saturday and Sunday 10.00-12.00 / 15.00-19.00
1 November, 8 December and 6 January: 10.00-12.00 and 15.00-19.00 Closed on Mondays, 25 December and 1 January
FREE ENTRY
![[object Object] - View of Suruga from Satta Pass, from the series 36 views of Mount Fuji](https://artsupp.com/pictures/partners_artworks_pictures/285x285/20530.jpg)
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![[object Object] - In the shrine of Kameido Tenjin, from the series Cento famose vedute di Edo](https://artsupp.com/pictures/partners_artworks_pictures/285x285/20532.jpg)
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![[object Object] - Ejiri in Suruga Province, from the series 36 Views of Mount Fuji](https://artsupp.com/pictures/partners_artworks_pictures/285x285/20527.jpg)
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![[object Object] - Yūi (station 17), from the series The 53 stations [of the Tōkaidō drawn] with two brushes](https://artsupp.com/pictures/partners_artworks_pictures/285x285/20531.jpg)
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![[object Object] - The Nihonbashi Bridge in the morning, from the 53 Stations series of the Tōkaidō](https://artsupp.com/pictures/partners_artworks_pictures/285x285/20529.jpg)
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