And now this:

Consider this image peeled off the interweb:



On the left is a work by my new boy Hiroshige. On the right is a reinterpretation of that work by no less than Vincent van Gogh.

Really? van Gogh?

Never shy in this area, I've added my own version:



I'm of two schools of thought. But then again, I always am. Mine's a bit bland, compared to the other two, but hey--I'm just figuring the program out. And besides, I'm a bland person. I'm like cottage cheese in a bag of skin.

Also, in my own defense, I'm still working on it. The tree and foreground need some more detailing, plus some other stuff.

If you're interested, here's a quick blurb from something called WebMuseum, Paris:

Ando Hiroshige was born in Edo (now Tokyo) and at first, like his father, was a fire warden. The prints of Hokusai are said to have first kindled in him the desire to become an artist, and he entered the studio of Utagawa Toyohiro, a renowned painter, as an apprentice. In 1812 Hiroshige took his teacher's name (a sign of graduation), signing his work Utagawa Hiroshige. His career falls roughly into three periods. From 1811 to about 1830 he created prints of traditional subjects such as young women and actors. During the next 15 years he won fame as a landscape artist, reaching a peak of success and achievement in 1833 when his masterpiece, the print series Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (scenes on the highway connecting Edo and Kyoto), was published. He maintained this high level of craftmanship in other travel series, including Celebrated Places in Japan and Sixty-nine Stations on the Kiso Highway. The work he did during the third period, the last years of his life, is sometimes of lesser quality, as he appears to have hurriedly met the demands of popularity. He died of cholera on October 12, 1858, in Edo.

The original painting in question was executed in 1857, which suggests, as per the above, that my boy Hiroshige had fallen off the sharp edge of genius. Hey, it happens. WebMuseum, Paris is a fun website. Send the man some money by clicking on the Everything you need to know section, then the FAQ section, then the How do I contribute? section. Yes, it's complicated. But life is short, my friends.