魚づくし|Medetai Fush and Sasaki Bamboo, from the series Uozukushi (Every Variety of Fish)

Utagawa Hiroshige, a master of ukiyo-e, is renowned for his innovative landscapes and captivating depictions of nature. This woodblock print, "Medetai Fush and Sasaki Bamboo," is part of his celebrated series, *Uozukushi* (Every Variety of Fish), created around 1840. While Hiroshige is perhaps best known for his expansive landscape series like *The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō* and *One Hundred Famous Views of Edo*, he also produced a significant number of exquisite bird and flower prints, and, as seen here, fish. These works demonstrate his keen observational skills and his ability to infuse even still-life subjects with a sense of life and movement. The *Uozukushi* series, with its focus on aquatic life, showcases Hiroshige's subtle use of color and his mastery of *bokashi* (color gradation), techniques that were labor-intensive but allowed for rich, atmospheric effects. This particular print, featuring a 'medetai' fish (often associated with good fortune) and elegant bamboo, exemplifies the poetic and ambient quality that distinguished Hiroshige's approach from his contemporaries and profoundly influenced Western artists during the Japonism movement.