The great 19th Century Japanese landscape artist Hiroshige (1797 - 1858) completed many designs for woodblock prints over his lifetime. Omi Hakkei is the Eight Beautiful Views of Omi, or Lake Biwa as it is now known. This is not the only set of Omi Hakkei designed by Hiroshige, but it is considered the best:
Mokuhanga is the traditional water based printing technique, originating in China and perfected in Japan. A print is created through design, carving blocks for each colour, then printing each colour successively until the print edition is completed. Mokuhanga is the Japanese word for wood block print. The Japanese characters 木版画 are 木 wood, 版 block and 画 picture. In Japan its meaning is the print itself, but in general contemporary use it means both the print and the technique. Mokuhanga is growing in popularity worldwide as learning becomes more accessible to people outside of Japan.
