Spatial Composition and Systems of Proportion in Utagawa Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo

This study aims to empirically elucidate the formal structure and visual system of late Edo–period ukiyo-e landscape prints through a geometric analysis of the spatial composition and proportional systems in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856–1858) by Utagawa Hiroshige. While previous scholarship has largely emphasized Hiroshige’s lyricism and emotive expression, this paper reinterprets proportion as a fundamental principle of landscape construction by focusing on the concept of warikata no kokoroe (割方の心得, principles of division) presented in Ehon Tebikigusa (1849). The analysis reveals that One Hundred Famous Views of Edo employs proportional schemes based on bipartite, tripartite, quadripartite, quintipartite, and √2–1 divisions, applied independently or in combination. Through these proportional structures, visual stability and tension, openness and density, the movement of the viewer’s gaze, and spatial depth are organically regulated. These formal characteristics suggest that the compositional experiments in ukiyo-e landscape prints that developed after Hokusai were further systematized and diversified in Hiroshige’s work, particularly at the level of proportion and compositional logic. Hiroshige’s use of proportion also serves to mitigate the artificiality that can arise from close-foreground compositions and the incorporation of Western linear perspective, instead harmonizing the overall spatial order of the picture plane to achieve visual balance and rhythmic coherence. Furthermore, by reconfiguring conventional illustrated images of famous places into sensorial and experiential spaces, Hiroshige formally embodies shifts in late Edo visual culture, reorganizing both the meaning of place and the viewer’s mode of perception.