Hiroshige Puzzle Set

Five different puzzles featuring art works by the 19th Century Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige. Hiroshige is recognized as a master of the ukiyo-e woodblock printing style, and over the course of his career, he created more than 8,000 prints of everyday life and landscape in Edo-period Japan.

To play: choose from three different levels: easy, medium, and hard. Click and drag the image block you want to move and the pieces will shift - keep going until you solve the puzzle!

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For the sake of this game, we had to crop the artworks to fit a square format; however, you should see these masterworks in full, so we are reproducing them below, courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago's Open Access Program.

Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock print by Hiroshige

Utagawa Hiroshige, "Oumayagashi, from the series 'One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei),'" 1857, courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. Learn more here.

Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock print by Hiroshige

Utagawa Hiroshige, "Asakusa Rice Fields and Torinomachi Festival (Asakusa tanbo Torinomachi mode), from the series 'One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei),'" 1857, courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. Learn more here.

Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock print by Hiroshige

Utagawa Hiroshige, "Mishima: Morning Mist (Mishima, asagiri), from the series 'Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road (Tokaido gojusan tsugi no uchi),' also known as the Hoeido Tokaido," circa 1833-34, courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. Learn more here.

Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock print by Hiroshige

Utagawa Hiroshige, "Snow at Benzaiten Shrine in Inokashira Pond (Inokashira no ike Benzaiten no yashiro yuki no kei), from the series 'Snow, Moon, and Flowers at Famous Places (Meisho setsugekka),'" circa 1844-45, courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. Learn more here.

Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock print by Hiroshige

Utagawa Hiroshige, "Shirasuka: Shiomi Slope, no. 33 from the series 'Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi),'" circa 1847-52, courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. Learn more here.

One item that might be of interest is that Hiroshige's art inspired a number of important French artists. How did this happen? In 1867, approximately 10 years after Hiroshige's death, over 100 Japanese Ukiyo-e engravings were put on display and sold at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. These prints thrilled artists such as Monet, Van Gogh, and a number of Impressionist painters, who became eager collectors of Japanese art and took inspiration from Hiroshige's vibrant ukiyo-e woodblock print imagery. Claude Monet was so enamored of this exhibition of Japanese art that he bought 117 out of the 211 works exhibited in Paris, which - in addition to Hiroshige - included Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806), Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858).