new fuji meguro

The artist, full title, and production year of the featured woodblock print

Utagawa Hiroshige; New Fuji, Meguro; 1857

Hiroshige's original birth name and year of birth

Born Andō Tokutarō in 1797

The master artist under whom Hiroshige began studying at age fourteen

Utagawa Toyohiro (whose surname he adopted)

The estimated total number of images Hiroshige produced during his thirty-year career

Eight thousand images (began producing landscapes around 1830)

The student who continued Hiroshige's series after his death in 1858

Suzuki Chinpei (who signed his work "Hiroshige II")

The specific multi-color woodblock printing process used for this print

Nishiki-e (translates to "brocade pictures")

The definition of a woodblock "relief" printing process

The design is drawn onto a wood block, and areas the artist does not want printed are cut away, leaving a raised design

The four-part cooperative group required to successfully produce and distribute a print

The artist (original design), block cutters (carving), printer (inking and alignment), and publisher (sales and distribution)

The maximum size print runs that publishers could market once an image was perfected

Ten to fifteen thousand copies

The series title and time span from which New Fuji, Meguro is selected

One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856-59)

The two other famous portfolio print series cited as examples of mass-marketed landscapes

Katsushika Hokusai's Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (c. 1830-32) and Hiroshige's Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō (1833-34)

The original name of Tokyo before its renaming in 1868

Edo

The exact timeline of the Edo period and the family that held military control

1603-1868; under the military control of the Tokugawa family

The literal translation of the artistic genre term ukiyo-e

"Pictures of the floating world"

The seven distinct subject matters popular within the ukiyo-e genre

Scenes of tea houses/hostesses, celebrities (actors and sumo wrestlers), annual festivals, scenic views, erotica, religious imagery, and folkloric imagery

The specific district in Edo that served as the commercial center of publishing

The Nihonbashi district (home to nearly three dozen bookstores and print shops)

The historical Western pictorial technique sometimes mixed with traditional Japanese forms in nishiki-e

Linear perspective

Mount Fuji's approximate distance from Tokyo and its geological shape origin

About sixty miles outside Tokyo; characterized by a symmetrical low conical shape from volcanic eruptions

The year of Mount Fuji's last volcanic eruption

1707

The two specific religious sects that made Mount Fuji a focus of pilgrimage

The Shugendō branch of Buddhism and the local Fujikō sect

The strict gender boundaries imposed on historic Mount Fuji pilgrimages

Banned women from ascending all the way to the summit; women could only participate after an extremely rigorous period of purification

The historical century when the infrastructure of roads, shrines, and hostels began growing around Fuji

The twelfth century

The primary spiritual goal of the first six hundred years of religious traffic to the mountain

Appeasing deities to prevent further eruptions

The visual representation shift of Mount Fuji seen in Hokusai's Under Mannen Bridge at Fukagawa

Shifted from a strictly sacred site to being presented simply as a part of the everyday landscape

The activities tourists are engaged in at the base of the landscape in New Fuji, Meguro

Taking refreshment from tea stands or strolling among blooming cherry trees

The three specific demographic groups visible in Hiroshige's print who were traditionally excluded from real pilgrimages

Women, elderly people, and children

The deliberate architectural shape of the viewing platform the tourists stand on

Mimicked the iconic shape of Fuji's volcanic cone (a "mini-Fuji" or replica)

The year the first replica platform was built, and the total number built during the Edo period

First built in 1779; more than one hundred replicas were constructed in total

The construction year and specific suburban location of the replica replica shown in the print

Built at Meguro in 1819

The democratic purpose of the mini-Fujis according to the 1818 historical text

Built because climbing the real mountain was too high and arduous for the weak-hearted, women, the very young, and the old; replicas allowed everyone to "set their hearts at peace"

The clothing worn by tourists visiting mini-Fujis compared to standard high-altitude climbers

Everyday garments instead of special white pilgrimage robes

The two other artists explicitly listed alongside Hiroshige for capturing the festive atmosphere of mini-Fujis

Hasagawa Settan and Let Kobayashi Eijirō

The playful visual trick of scale Hiroshige uses in the composition

The volcano's size is matched by its mini "twin," placing the artificial replica and the distant mountain side-by-side at an apparently similar size

The milestone year Mount Fuji was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site

2013

The estimated annual number of tourists who hiked Mount Fuji in the 2010s, and the seasonal timeframe of their visits

300,000 tourists annually, concentrated within an intense ten-week summer period

The two Japanese Prefectures that share administrative responsibility for protecting Mount Fuji

Shizuoka and Yamanashi Prefectures

The specific regulatory restrictions implemented in 2024 to curb overtourism

A ¥4000 fee (around $25 to $30), earlier closing times, required reservations, and a daily cap on reservation numbers

The three specific spiritual goals of a traditional religious pilgrimage versus pure enjoyment

Enlightenment, worship, or contemplation

The modern era definition of "nature" that emerged as the world grew more urbanized

Something separate from the realm of human endeavor

The specific family tragedy that occurred in Hiroshige's life around the age of fourteen

He was orphaned (right before he began studying under Utagawa Toyohiro)

The approximate number of bookstores and print shops operating in Edo's Nihonbashi publishing district

Nearly three dozen

The three specific topics that written travel guides introduced to literate Japanese readers

Noteworthy sites, historical events, and natural wonders

The artist, title, series, and approximate date of the supplementary nishiki-e print showing an urban tea house

Torii Kiyonaga; Yushima; from the series Scenes of Ten Teahouses; c. 1783