Hiroshi Yoshida (吉田 博, Yoshida Hiroshi, September 19, 1876 – April 5, 1950) was a 20th-century Japanese painter and woodblock printmaker. Along with Hasui Kawase, he is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the shin-hanga style, and is noted especially for his landscape prints.

Claude Monet the French impressionist was an avid collector and in the opinion of many deeply inspired by the artistic simplicity of Yoshida. The influence of this piece can be seen in many of Monets works and the pond at Giverny would seem to have been influenced by this print.

At his estate in Giverny, Monet designed a Japanese footbridge like ones depicted in the prints and placed it above the garden’s pond. A passionate horticulturist, Monet curated an array of flowers and vegetation that surrounded the bridge. He stated his motive for creating the garden was “for the pleasure of the eye and also motifs to paint.” The artist completed a series titled Japanese Bridge in 1899, and again near the end of his painting career between 1920 and 1922. Monet painted this scene throughout the changing seasons and effortlessly captured the fleeting effects of color and light. Monet never visited Japan, but the garden reveals his desire to emulate the country’s landscape and nature as a model for his work. Similarly, like Vincent van Gogh’s comparison to the French countryside of Arles to Japan, Monet believed Norway was the closest resemblance to the Empire of the Rising Sun. He wrote in a letter to friend Blanche Hoschedé “I am working on a view of Sandviken that resembles a Japanese village; then I’m doing a mountain that one sees from everywhere here and which makes me think of Fuji-Yama.” In Norway, Monet created the painting Mount Kolsaas (1895) after the mountain he recalled in the letter reminded him of Mount Fuji.

Art historians are constantly in debate about the level of influence Japanese art had over Monet and his work. However, Monet’s collection and garden serves as an ode to his appreciation for Japan. Claude Monet’s ukiyo-e prints are still on display in his home in Giverny, France, covering every wall in his home. In 2006 and 2007, Musée Marmottan in Paris, France exhibited the prints.

Yoshida made numerous trips around the world, with the aim of getting to know different artistic expressions and making works of different landscapes. He traveled widely, and was particularly known for his images of non-Japanese subjects done in traditional Japanese woodblock style, including the Taj Mahal, the Swiss Alps, the Grand Canyon, and other National Parks in the United States.

He was known as a mountain painter (山岳画家) in Japan and spent about half of the year on sketching travels. He was particularly fond of mountain landscapes and painted many of them, founding the Nihon Sangakugaka Kyōkai (Japan Mountain Painting Society, 日本山岳画家協会) in his later years. As a mountaineer, he climbed the mountains of the Japanese Alps every summer and created his large paintings and woodblock prints after returning home.

Hiroshi Yoshida (born Hiroshi Ueda) was born in the city of Kurume, Fukuoka, in Kyushu, on September 19, 1876.[5] At the age of 15, he was adopted by the Yoshida family after his talent for painting was discovered by Kasaburo Yoshida, a junior high school art teacher, and studied with the Kyoto yōga-ka (Western-style painters) Tamura Sōryū and Miyake Kokki. He moved to Tokyo at the age of 17 and entered the Fudōsha (不同舎), a painting school sponsored by the yōga-ka Koyama Shōtarō, and became a member of the Meiji Bijutsukai (Meiji Art Society, 明治美術会), the first Western-style art organization in Japan.[2]

In 1899, Yoshida had his first American exhibition at the Detroit Museum of Art (now the Detroit Institute of Art). In 1900 he had an exhibition with Hachiro Nakagawa at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He then traveled to Washington, D.C., Providence, France, Great Britain, Germany, and Italy. He exhibited his work at the Paris Exposition of 1900, for which he received a commendation, and after coming to the United States in 1903, he exhibited his work at the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904, for which he received a bronze medal. Around this time, Yoshida and his fellow painters founded the Taiheiyōgakai (Pacific Art Society, 太平洋画会) the successor to the Meiji Bijutsukai.[2]

In 1920, at the age of 44, Yoshida presented his first woodcut at the Watanabe Print Workshop, organized by Shōzaburō Watanabe (1885–1962), publisher and advocate of the shin-hanga movement. His first work was a print depicting the Meiji Shrine. In 1921, he produced seven prints, including a series of sailing ships. However, Yoshida's collaboration with Watanabe was short partly due to Watanabe's shop burning down because of the Great Kanto earthquake on September 1, 1923.[2]

In 1923, Yoshida made a third travel to the U.S. to sell the few works left after the earthquake. His prints were well received in the U.S. and he held exhibitions all over the country from his base in Boston.[2] His travel to the United States made him aware of the high reputation of Japanese woodblock prints and he set out to create new woodblock prints that would combine the traditional Japanese technique of ukiyo-e with the realistic expression of yōga (Western-style painting).[6][7]

In 1925, he hired a group of professional carvers and printers, and established his own studio. Prints were made under his close supervision.[6] Yoshida combined the ukiyo-e collaborative system with the sōsaku-hanga principle of "artist's prints", and formed a third school, separating himself from the shin-hanga and sōsaku-hanga movement.

In 1925, he started the series Europe and the series The United States and published works like The Grand Canyon.[2] In 1926, he published 41 prints, the year in which he produced the most prints in his life.[8] In that year, he started the series Seto Inland Sea, of which Glittering Sea was published in the same year. He also published the series Twelve Scenes in the Japan Alps and three prints from the series Ten Views of Mount Fuji in the same year. In 1928, he published the series Southern Japan Alps and the remaining seven works from the series Ten Views of Mount Fuji.