Many things from Japan have migrated over to the borough of Brooklyn, but none of them probably have the elegant simplicity of Utagawa Hiroshige's prints of his hometown of Edo, now known as Tokyo. Working through the 19th century, Hiroshige created 118 woodblock landscape and genre scenes of mid-nineteenth century Tokyo. While the actual prints are rather delicate, they can be viewed at one's leisure online, courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, where they reside. The site contains an essay on Hiroshige and his life and a very helpful primer titled "How to Read a Japanese Woodblock Print". Of course, there are the actual images themselves, which can be browsed by season or by keywords, which include "rain", "dawn", and of course, "city life".
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