During the Edo period, tourism was also booming, leading to increased popular interest in travel.Travel guides abounded, and towns appeared along routes such as the Tōkaidō, a road that connected Edo with Kyoto.In the midst of this burgeoning travel culture, Hiroshige drew upon his own travels, as well as tales of others' adventures, for inspiration in creating his landscapes.For example, in The Fifty-three Stations on the Tōkaidō (1833), he illustrates anecdotes from Travels on the Eastern Seaboard (東海道中膝栗毛 Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige , 1802–1809) by Jippensha Ikku , a comedy describing the adventures of two bumbling travelers as they make their way along the same road.
Hiroshige's The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō (1833–1834) and One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856–1858) greatly influenced French Impressionists such as Monet . Vincent Van Gogh copied two of the One Hundred Famous Views of Edo which were among his collection of ukiyo-e prints.Hiroshige's style also influenced the Mir iskusstva , a 20th-century Russian art movement in which Ivan Bilibin was a major artist. [ citation needed ] Cézanne and Whistler were also amongst those under Hiroshige's influence. [19] Hiroshige was regarded by Louise Gonse, director of the influential Gazette des Beaux-Arts and author of the two volume L'Art Japonais in 1883, as the greatest painter of landscapes of the 19th century. [20]