(by Silvia Lambertucci) Van Gogh was beloved of his techniques and admired his use of color and harmony of composition, studying his work avidly and copying him in two of his paintings.
Degas used his style in his ballerinas and Monet replicated his exotic scenes in his own manner.
Though incredibly far from Europe in geographic and cultural terms, Utawage Hiroshige, the 'Master of Rain and Snow' as he was known in his homeland, had a more significant influence than other well-known Japanese artists from the mid-19th century on some sections of Western visual arts - from Impressionism to cartoons and the digital graphics of our age. Celebrating his works will be an exhibit that opens on March 1 in Rome at the Scuderie del Quirinale as well as a series of side events and coming at the end of the anniversary events for 150 years of bilateral relations between Italy and Japan. The show, "Hiroshige. Visioni dal Giappone" ("Hiroshige.
Visions from Japan"), will run through July 29 and incudes some rare pieces as well as many that have never before been seen, on loan from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which holds some of the most important collections of Ukiyo-e masters, also known as the 'Art of the Fluctuating World'. The works are so invaluable and delicate, say curators, that to exhibit them while limiting the risk of damage to them, it was necessary to lower the lights of the exhibition space and protect all the drawings with anti-UVB glass. After returning to Boston after nine months and a stop in Bologna, they will have to be left in the dark for another five years. Set up in seven theme-based routes and presented to the public with audioguides included in the ticket price, the show at the Scuderie - the result of an agreement with the US museum at the cost of under 200,000 euros - centers on the production of Ukiyo-e.
The genre of Japanese art flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries with woodblock prints and paintings reproduced in the hundreds, with tiny detailed drawings that focused on daily life and work scenes, the faces of the artists and female beauty, and clothing, habits and fashion in Edo, modern-day Tokyo.
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