Born in 1797, Hiroshige was considered a master of the Ukiyo-e woodblock printing tradition, having created roughly 8,000 prints of everyday life and landscapes in the Edo-period Japan. Hiroshige began painting around the age of twelve under the tutelage of Toyohiro of the Utagawa school. His early work, depicting narrow, vertical landscapes with houses in-between cliffs and birds perched on flowering branches shows the influence of Chinese scroll painting, as well as the previously dominant Kano school of Japanese painting.
