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Hiroshige's family, then, were of humble station in life. The firemen,
or, perhaps more correctly, fire-police (hikeshi-doshin), were officials
of sorts; and, as such, had some measure of authority and influence as
compared with unofficial persons of their grade in the Japanese social
scheme - influence which was, later on, so far serviceable to the artist
as to procure him the opportunity of making his first journey over the
Tokaido. The duties had become almost nominal in the general slackness
which characterized the last phase of the Tokugawa regime ; and it is
related that these fire-police occupied most of their time in
amusements, in gambling, or in the practice of such easy arts as lay
within the scope of comparatively uneducated folk.
Thus, some achieved quite a reputation as amateur artists, makers of
surimono, for instance, carvers of netsuke, practitioners of the
tea-ceremony, or members of the clubs of artisan-poets, who embellished
their periodical meetings or picnics with the production of simple
verses, popular or even cheerfully vulgar in style and form.
Hiroshige\'s friend and contemporary, Okajima Rinsai, was one of these,
and also a member of the hikeshi-doshin. Shigenobu was another, and owed
his later connexion with Hiroshige to the fact.
In this environment Hiroshige was born in the 9th year of the Period
Kwansei (A.D. 1797); and the circumstances of his earlier years are not
without some importance, when one considers the effective use made in
some of his best designs of the look-out towers used in Yedo by the
firemen of his day.
In the normal course of events, Hiroshige - or, to give him the name
that belonged to this period, Tokutaro Ando - would have followed,
throughout his life, his father\'s occupation; and the world would have
lost, thereby, a great artist. But in 1809 both his father and his
mother died. He had, almost from infancy, displayed his inclination
towards art; and his father had already arranged for him to have lessons
from a friend and neighbour, an amateur painter named Okajima Rinsai.
In his fifteenth year he desired greatly to become a pupil of Toyokuni;
but the studio of the great man, then at the height of his popularity,
could not accommodate him; and he joined that of Toyohiro, who had been a
fellow-pupil of Toyokuni under Toyoharu. Here he progressed so rapidly
that within the short space of a year his master, in accordance with the
custom of the profession, formally admitted him to membership of the
Utagawa fraternity, his diploma, in Toyohiro\'s own writing, giving him
the artist-name of Utagawa Hiroshige, being dated the 9th day of the 3rd
month, Period Bunkwa, 9th year (March 9, 1812). This document was known
recently to be still preserved in a private collection in Tokyo.
Whether it has survived the disaster of 1923 has not yet been
ascertained.
Hiroshige, then, had already attained the status, such as it was, of a
designer of colour-prints, in 1812; but he still held his post of
fireman - though to what extent he performed the duties we cannot even
conjecture. It was not until 1823 that he resigned his appointment.
Before this date he had married a woman of samurai descent, said to have
been \"a gentle woman possessed of every feminine virtue and of a
graceful mien characteristic of refined family.\" She died in 1840; but
her son Nakajiro had already been born when Hiroshige left the fire
brigade. The post was filled temporarily by a kinsman, Tetsuzo Ando,
until, in 1832, Nakajiro was old enough to resume it. As Hiroshige
himself was then only thirty-six years of age, the duties cannot have
been very onerous, if they could be taken on by a boy so young as
Nakajiro must then have been.
One cannot ignore the significance of this latter event. The year 1832
was not only that in which Hiroshige definitely established his son in
his hereditary calling, but was also that of his first journey from Yedo
to Kyoto along the Tokaido Road - the journey which produced the most
famous of all his works, the first and greatest series of his \"Views of
the 53 Stations of the Tokaido.\" It is not unreasonable to assume that
now, having provided for his son, he found himself free to wander at
will - to devote his life to the occupation that had been his heart\'s
desire since the days of his early boyhood - the trade of a painter.
Hiroshige died of cholera in his 62nd year, on the 6th day of the 9th
month in the 5th year of Ansei (A.D. 1858).
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