Grandpa’s Teahouse, Meguro

This piece is from Hiroshige’s “one hundred famous views of Edo,” it captures the landscape of a hilly rice field. The rice fields below the hill create elevation in the piece as you can tell that there is a separation between the two. There are small and simple outlines of people traveling within the windy path that is in the fields, giving the piece a larger perspective as the fields are seemingly endless. The clouds cut off the mountains from the fields down below, creating height within the piece. The people in the piece aren’t the focus, instead, they flow within the landscape, becoming a part of it. Hiroshige deliberately doesn’t put much detail into the people because they aren’t what drives the print, it’s the landscape.

• Jesus Martinez Gomez