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Ukiyo-e, is a genre of woodblock print sand paintings flourished in Japan
primarily from the 17th to 19th centuries. Aimed at the prosperous merchant
class in the urbanizing Edo period (1603–1867), depictions of beautiful
women; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and
folk tales; travel scenes and landscapes; flora and fauna; and erotica were
amongst the more popular themes.Edo (modern Tokyo) was
chosen as the seat of government by the military dictatorship in the early 17th century. The
merchant class at the bottom of the social order found themselves the greatest
beneficiaries of the city's rapid economic growth. Many indulged in the
entertainments of kabuki theatre, courtesans, and geisha of the pleasure districts. The term ukiyo ("floating world" came to
describe this hedonistic lifestyle. Printed or painted "ukiyo-e"
images of this environment emerged in the late 17th century, and were popular
with the merchant class who had become wealthy enough that they could afford to
decorate their homes with such works.
In the 1670s Moronobu was
the earliest success with his paintings and monochromatic prints of beautiful
women. Colour prints came gradually—at first, added by hand only for special
commissions. By the 1740s, artists such as Masanobu used multiple woodblocks to print
areas of colour. From the 1760s the success of Harunobu's
full-colour "brocade prints" led to colour as a standard, each
print made with ten or more blocks. The peak period in terms of quantity and
quality was marked by portraits of beauties and actors by masters such as Kiyonaga, Utamaro, and Sharaku in the late 18th century. This peak
was followed in the 19th century by a pair of masters, best remembered for
their landscapes: the bold formalist Hokusai, whose Great
Wave off Kanagawa is one of the best-known works of Japanese
art; and the serene, atmospheric Hiroshige, best remembered for the series The
Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō. Following the deaths of these two masters,
and against the technological and social modernization that followed the Meiji Restoration of 1868, ukiyo-e production went into
steep decline.
Some ukiyo-e artists specialized in making paintings, but most
works were prints. Artists rarely carved their own woodblocks for printing;
rather, production was divided between the artist, who designed the prints; the
carver, who cut the woodblocks; the printer, who inked and pressed the
woodblocks onto hand-made paper; and the publisher, who financed,
promoted, and distributed the works. As printing was done by hand printers were
able to achieve effects impractical with machines, such as the blending or gradation of colours on the printing block.
Ukiyo-e was central to forming the West's perception of Japanese art in the late 19th century–especially
the landscapes of Hokusai and Hiroshige. From the 1870s Japonism became a prominent trend and had a
strong influence on the early Impressionists such as Degas, Manet,
and Monet; Post-Impressionists such as van Gogh; and Toulouse-Lautrec and other Art Nouveau artists. The 20th century saw a
revival in Japanese printmaking: the shin-hanga ("new prints") genre
capitalized on Western interest in prints of traditional Japanese scenes, and
the sōsaku-hanga ("creative prints") movement
promoted individualist works designed, carved, and printed by a single pair of
hands. Prints since the late 20th century have continued in an individualist
vein, and have been made with techniques imported from the West as well, such
as screen printing, etching, mezzotint, and mixed media.
Pre-history
Japanese art since the Heian period (794–1185) had followed two principal
paths: the nativist Yamato-e tradition, which focused on Japanese
themes painted in soft colours and contours, best known by the works of
the Tosa school; and Chinese-inspired ones, such as the
monochromatic ink wash painting of Sesshū Tōyō and his disciples. The Kanō school of painting incorporated features of
both.[1]
Since antiquity,
Japanese art had found patrons in the aristocracy, military governments, and
religious authorities.[2] Until the 16th century, the lives of the
common people had not been subject to the painters, and even when they did find
their way into genre paintings, they were luxury items made for the ruling
samurai and rich merchant classes.[3] Later appeared works by and for an
audience of townspeople, inexpensive monochromatic paintings of beautiful
women, and scenes of the theatre and pleasure districts. The hand-produced nature of these shikomi-e limited the scale of their
production, a limit that was soon overcome by genres that turned to
mass-produced woodblock printing.[4]
Maple Viewing at Takao (mid-16th
century) by Kanō
Hideyori (ja) is one of the
earliest Japanese paintings to feature the lives of the common people.[2]
Woodblock printing in Japan traces back to
the Hyakumantō Darani in 770 CE. Until the 17th
century, such printing served for producing Buddhist seals and images.[5] Moveable type appeared around 1600, but as the Japanese writing system required about 100 000 type
pieces, hand-carving text onto woodblocks was found to be more efficient.
In Saga Domain, Honami Kōetsu andSuminokura Soan (ja) combined printed text and images in
an adaptation of The Tales of Ise (1608) and other books of literature.[6] During the Kan'ei era (1624–1643) illustrated books of
folk tales called tanrokubon, or "orange-green books", were the
first books to be mass-produced using woodblock printing.[5] Woodblock imagery continued to evolve as
illustrations to the kanazōshi genre of tales of hedonistic urban life
in the new capital of Edo (modern Tokyo).[7] The rebuilding of Edo following
the Great Fire of Meireki in 1657 occasioned a
modernization of the city, and the publication of illustrated printed books
flourished in the rapidly urbanizing environment.[8]
Tokugawa Ieyasu gained power over Japan in the early
17th century and established his government in Edo (modern Tokyo).
Following a prolonged period of civil war in the 16th century, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616)was appointed Shōgun with supreme power over Japan. He
consolidated his government in the village of Edo, and
required the territorial lords to assemble there with their
entourages; the village grew during the Edo period(1603–1867) from a population of 1800 to in
excess of a million in the 19th century.[9] Japanese society was divided into four social classes, with the rulingsamurai class at the top and the merchant class
at the bottom. The merchant class most benefited from the rapidly expanding
economy,[10] and their improved lot allowed for
leisure that many sought in the pleasure districts—in particular Yoshiwara[9]—and in collecting artworks to decorate their
homes, which in earlier times had been well beyond their financial means.[11]
The term
"ukiyo",[a] which can be translated as
"floating world", was homphonous with an ancient Buddhist term signifying
"this world of sorrow and grief".[b] The newer term at times was used to mean
"erotic" or "stylish", amongst other meanings, and came to
describe the hedonistic spirit of the time for the lower classes, celebrated in
the novel Ukiyo monogatari ("Tales of the Floating
World", c. 1661) by Asai Ryōi:[12]
"... living
only for the moment, savouring the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms, and the
maple leaves, singing songs, drinking sake, and diverting oneself just in
floating, unconcerned by the prospect of imminent poverty, buoyant and
carefree, like a gourd carried along with the river current: this is what we
call ukiyo."
Torii Kiyonobu I and Kaigetsudō Ando became prominent emulators of Moronobu's
style following the master's death, though neither was a member of the
Hishikawa school. Both discarded background detail in favour of focus on the
human figure—kabuki actors in the yakusha-e of Kiyonobu and theTorii school that followed him,[20] and courtesans in the bijin-ga of Ando and his Kaigetsudō school. Ando and his followers produced a
stereotyped female image whose set design and pose lent itself to effective
mass production,[21] and its popularity created a demand for
paintings that other artists and schools took advantage of.[22] The Kaigetsudō school and its
"Kaigetsudō beauty" it popularized came to an end after Ando's exile
over his role in the Ejima-Ikushima
scandal of 1714.[23]
Kyoto native Nishikawa Sukenobu (1671–1750) painted technically
refined pictures of courtesans.[24] Considered a master of erotic portraits,
he was the subject of a government ban in 1722, though works believed to be his
continued to circulate under different names.[25] Sukenobu spent most of his career in
Edo, and his influence was considerable in both the Kantō and Kansai regions.[24] The paintings of Miyagawa Chōshun (1683–1752) portrayed early
18th-century life in delicate colours. Chōshun made no prints.[26] The Miyagawa
school he founded
in the early-18th century specialized in romantic paintings in style more
refined in line and colour than the Kaigetsudō school. Chōshun allowed greater
expressive freedom in his adherents, a group that later included Hokusai.[22]
Colour prints (mid-18th century)
Even in the earliest, monochromatic prints and
books, colour was added by hand for special commissions. Demand for colour in
the early-18th century was met with tan-e[c] prints hand-tinted with orange and
sometimes green or yellow.[28] These were followed in the 1720s with a
vogue for pink-tinted beni-e,[d] and later the lacquer-like ink of
the urushi-e. In 1744, the benizuri-e were the first successes in colour
printing, using multiple woodblocks—one for each colour, the earliest beni pink
and vegetable green.[29]
A great self-promoter, Okumura Masanobu (1686–1764) played a major role
during the period of rapid technical development in printing from the late-17th
to mid-18th centuries.[29] He established a shop in 1707,[30] and combined elements of the major
contemporary schools in a wide array of genres, though Masanobu himself belonged
to no school. Amongst the innovations in his romantic, lyrical images was the
introduction of Western-styleperspective in the uki-e genre;[e] the long, narrow hashira-e prints;
and the combination of graphics and literature in prints that included
self-pennedhaiku poetry.[33]
Ukiyo-e reached a peak in the late 17th
century with the advent of full-colour prints, developed after Edo returned to
prosperity under Tanuma Okitsuguafter a long depression.[34] These popular colour prints came to be
called nishiki-e, or "brocade pictures", as their
brilliant colours seemed to bear resemblance to imported Chinese
Shuchiang brocades, known in Japanese as Shokkō nishiki.[35] The first to emerge were expensive
calendar prints, printed with multiple blocks on finer paper with heavier,
opaque inks. These prints had the number of days for each month hidden in the
design, and were sent at the New Year as personalized greetings, bearing the
name of the patron rather than the artist. The blocks for these prints were
later re-used for commercial production, obliterating the patron's name and
replacing it with that of the artist.[36]
The delicate, romantic prints of Suzuki Harunobu (1725–1770) were some of the
earliest successes to make expressive use of colour,[37] printed with up to a dozen separate
plates to handle the different colours[38] and half-tones.[39] His restrained, graceful prints invoked
the classicism of waka poetry andyamato-e painting. Harunobu's was prolific, and
the dominant ukiyo-e artist of his time.[40] The success of Harunobu's
colourful nishiki-e from 1765 on led to a steep decline in
demand for the limited palettes of benizuri-e and urushi-e,
as well as for hand-coloured prints.[38]
A trend against
the idealism of the prints of Harunobu and the Torii school grew following
Harunobu's death in 1770. Katsukawa Shunshō (1726–1793) and his school produced portraits of kabuki
actors with greater fidelity to the actors' actual features than had been the
trend.[41] Sometime-collaborators Koryūsai (1735–c. 1790) and Kitao Shigemasa (1739–1820) were prominent depictors of
women who also moved ukiyo-e away from the dominance of Harunobu's idealism by
focusing on contemporary urban fashions and celebrated real-world courtesans
and geisha.[42] The Kitao
school that
Shigemasa founded was one of the dominant schools of the closing decades of the
18th century.[43]
The late 18th century saw hard economic times,[44] while ukiyo-e saw a peak flowering in
quantity and quality, in particular during the Kansei era
(1789–1791).[45] The ukiyo-e of the period of the Kansei Reforms brought about a focus on beauty and
harmony[43] that collapsed into decadence and
disharmony in the next century as the reforms broke down and tensions rose,
culminating in the Meiji Restoration of 1868.[45] Especially in the 1780s, Torii Kiyonaga (1752–1815)[43] of the Torii school[45] returned ukiyo-e to its focus on
beauties and urban scenes, which he printed on large sheets of paper, often as
multiprint horizontal diptychs or triptychs. His works dispensed with the poetic
dreamscapes of Harunobu's, opting instead for realistic depictions of idealized
female forms posed in scenic locations,[43] the women in the latest fashions.[46] He also produced portraits of kabuki
actors, in a realistic style that included the accompanying members of the
stage such as the musicians and chorus.[47]
Utamaro (c. 1753–1806) made his name in the 1790s with
his bijin ōkubi-e ("large-headed pictures of beautiful
women"), portraits focusing on the head and upper torso, a style others
had previously employed in portraits of kabuki actors.[48] Utamaro experimented with line, colour,
and printing techniques to bring out subtle differences in the features,
expressions, and backdrops of subjects from a wide variety of class and
background. Utamaro's individuated beauties were in sharp contrast to the
stereotyped, idealized images that had been the norm.[49] By the end of the decade, especially
following the death of his patron Tsutaya Jūzaburō in 1797, Utamaro's prodigious
output declined in quality,[50] and he died two years after his
imprisonment in 1804 for violating censorship laws.[51]
Appearing suddenly in 1794 and disappearing
just as suddenly ten months later, the prints of the enigmatic Sharaku are amongst ukiyo-e's best known.
Sharaku produced striking portraits of kabuki actors, introducing a greater
level of realism into his prints that emphasized the differences between the
actor and the character portrayed.[52] The expressive, contorted faces he
depicted contrasted sharply with the serene, even mask-like faces more common
to artists such as Harunobu or Utamaro.[39] Published by Tsutaya,[51] Sharaku's work found resistance, and in
1795 he disappeared as mysteriously as he had appeared, and his identity is yet
unknown.[53] Utagawa Toyokuni (1769–1825) produced kabuki portraits in
a style Edo townsfolk found more accessible, emphasizing dramatic postures and
avoiding Sharaku's realism.[52]
A consistently
high level of quality marked late-18th-century ukiyo-e, but masters of the era
are often overshadowed by the works of Utamaro and Sharaku.[51] One of Kiyonaga's followers,[45]Chōbunsai Eishi (ja) (1756–1829) abandoned his position
of painter for the Shogun Tokugawa Ieharu to take up ukiyo-e design. He brought a
refined sense to his portraits of graceful, slender courtesans, and left behind
a number of notable students.[51] With a fine line Eishōsai Chōki designed portraits of delicate
courtesans. As this period drew to a close, the Utagawa school came to dominate
ukiyo-e output in the late Edo period.[54] Edo was the primary centre of ukiyo-e
production throughout the Edo period. The so-called Kamigata region comprising the areas in and
around Kyoto and Osaka was
another major centre of production. In contrast to the range of subjects in the
Edo prints, those of Kamigata tended to be portraits of kabuki actors. The
style of the Kamigata prints was little distinguished from those of Edo until
the late 18th century, partly because artists often moved back and forth
between the two areas.[55] Colours tend to be softer and pigments
thicker in Kamigata prints than in those of Edo.[56]
The Tenpō Reforms of 1841–43 sought to suppress outward
displays of luxury, including the depiction of courtesans and actors. Many
ukiyo-e artists turned at this time to travel scenes and pictures of nature,
especially of birds and flowers.[57] Landscapes had been given limited
attention since Moronobu, and formed an important element in the works of
Kiyonaga and Shuncho. It was not until late in the Edo period that landscape
came into its own as a genre, especially via the works of Hokusai and Hiroshige. The landscape genre has come to define
ukiyo-e for Western audiences, though ukiyo-e had a long history preceding
these late-era masters.[58] The Japanese landscape differed from the
Western tradition in that it relied more heavily on imagination, composition,
and atmosphere than on strict observance of nature.[59]
The self-proclaimed "mad painter" Hokusai (1760–1849) enjoyed a long,
varied career. His work is marked by a lack of the sentimentality common to
ukiyo-e, and a focus on formalism influenced by Western art. Amongst his
accomplishments are his illustrations of Takizawa Bakin's novel Crescent Moon (ja), his series of sketchbooks, the Hokusai Manga, and his popularization the landscape
genre with Thirty-six Views of
Mount Fuji,[60] which includes his best-known
print, The Great Wave off
Kanagawa.[61] one of the most famous works of Japanese
art.[62] In contrast to the work of the older
masters, Hokusai's colours were bold, flat, and abstract, and his subject was
not the pleaure districts but the lives and environment of the common people at
work.[63] Established masters Eisen, Kuniyoshi, and Kunisada also followed Hokusai's steps into
landscape prints in the 1830s, producing prints with bold compositions and
striking effects.[64]
Though not often
given the attention of their better-known forebears, the Utagawa school
produced a few masters in this declining period. The prolific Kunisada
(1786–1865) had few rivals in the tradition of making portrait prints of
courtesans and actors.[65] Of those rivals was Eisen (1790–1848),
who was also adept at ladnscapes.[66] Perhaps the last significant member of
this late period, Kuniyoshi (1797–1861)
tried his hand at a variety of themes and styles, much as Hokusai had. His
historical scenes of warriors in violent combat were popular,[67] especially his series of heroes from
the Suikoden (1827–30) and Chūshingura (1847),[68] and he was adept at landscapes and
satirical scenes—the latter an area rarely explored in the dictatorial
atmosphere of the Edo era, a sign of the weakening of the Shogunate in
mid-century.[67]
Hiroshige
(1797–1858) is considered
Hokusai's greatest rival in stature. He specialized in pictures of birds and
flowers, and serene landscapes, and is best known for his travel series, such
as The Fifty-three
Stations of the Tōkaidō and The Sixty-nine
Stations of the Kiso Kaidō,[69] the latter a split effort with Eisen.[66] His work was more realistic, subtly
coloured, and atmospheric than Hokusai's; nature and the seasons were key
elements: mist, rain, snow, and moonlight were prominent parts of his
compositions.[70] Hiroshige's followers, including adopted son Hiroshige II and son-in-law Hiroshige III carried on their master's style
of landscapes into the Meiji era.[71]
Decline (late 19th century)
Following the
deaths of Hokusai and Hiroshige,[72] and the Meiji Restoration of 1868,
ukiyo-e suffered a sharp decline in quantity and quality.[73] The rapid Westernization of the Meiji period that followed saw woodblock
printing turn its services to journalism, and face competition from
photography. Practitioners of pure ukiyo-e became more rare, and tastes turned
away from a genre seen as a remnant of an obsolescent era.[72] Artists continued to produce occasional
notable works, but by the 1890s the tradition was moribund.[74]
Synthetic
pigments imported from Germany began to replace traditional organic ones in the
mid-19th century. Many prints from this era made extensive use of a bright red,
and were called aka-e("red pictures").[75] Artists such as Yoshitoshi (1839–1892) led a trend in the 1860s of
gruesome scenes of murders and ghosts,[76] monsters and supernatural beings, and
legendary Japanese and Chinese heroes. His One Hundred Aspects of the
Moon (1885–92) depicts a variety of fantastic and mundane themes with
the moon as motif.[77] Kiyochika (1847–1915) is known for his
prints documenting the rapid changes taking place in modernizing Tokyo, such as
the introduction of railways; and his depictions of the wars Japan fought with China and with Russia.[76] Earlier a painter of the Kanō school, in
the 1870s Chikanobu (1838–1912) turned to prints,
particularly of the imperial family and scenes of Western influence
on Japanese life in the Meiji period.[78]
Aside from Dutch
traders, who had had trading relations dating to the beginning of the
Edo period,[79] Westerners paid little notice to
Japanese art before the mid-19th century, and when they did rarely
distinguished it from other art from the East.[79] Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg spent a year in the Dutch
trading settlement Dejima, near Nagasaki, and was one of the
earliest Westerners to collect Japanese prints. The export of ukiyo-e
thereafter slowly grew, and the beginning of the 19th century Dutch
merchant-trader Isaac Titsingh's collection drew the attention of
connosisseurs of art in Paris.[80]
The arrival in
Edo of American Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1853 led to the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854, which opened Japan to
the outside world afterover two centuries
of seclusion.
Ukiyo-e prints were amongst the items he brought back to the United States.[81] Such prints had appeared in Paris from
at least the 1830s, and by the 1850s were numerous;[82] reception was mixed, and even when
praised ukiyo-e was generally thought inferior to Western works and their
emphasis on mastery of naturalistic perspective and anatomy.[83] Japanese art drew notice at the International
Exhibition of 1867 in Paris,[79] and became fashionable in France and
England in the 1870s and 1880s.[79] The prints of Hokusai and Hiroshige
played a prominent role in shaping Western perceptions of Japanese art.[84] At the time of their introduction to the
West, woodblock printing was the most common mass medium in Japan, and the
Japanese considered it of little lasting value.[85]
Early Europeans
promoters and scholars of Ukiyoe-e and Japanese art included writer Edmond de Goncourt, art critic Philippe Burty (fr)[86]—who coined the term "Japonism"[87][f]—and art dealer Siegfried Bing, who from 1888 to 1891 published the
magazine Artistic Japan (fr)[88] in English, French, and German editions.[89] American Ernest Fenollosa was the earliest Western devotee of
Japanese culture, and did much to promote Japanese art—Hokusai was the star of
his inaugural exhibition as first curator of Japanese art Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and in Tokyo in 1898
he curated the first ukiyo-e exhibition in Japan.[90]By the end of the 19th century the popularity
of ukiyo-e in the West drove prices beyond the means of most collectors—some
such as Degas traded their own paintings for such prints. Tadamasa Hayashi was a prominent Paris-based dealer of
respected tastes whose Tokyo office was responsible for evaluating and
exporting large quantities of ukiyo-e prints to the West—such quantities that
Japanese critics have accused him of siphoning Japan of its national treasure.[91] The drain first went unnoticed in Japan
as Japanese artists were immersing themselves in the classical painting
techniques of the West.[92]
Japanese art, and
particularly ukiyo-e prints, came to influence early Impressionist painters.[93] John LaFarge,[94] Manet and Whistler were early collectors who
incorporated Japanese themes and compositional techniques into their paintings
as early as the 1860s.[82] Degas, Monet,[93] Mary Cassatt, and Toulouse-Lautrec were amongst the artists taken
in by Japonism.[88] Van Gogh was an avid collector, and painted
copies in oil of prints by Hiroshige and Keisai Eisen.[95] In the 20th century Imagist poets such as Amy Lowell found inspiration in ukiyo-e
prints—Lowell in 1919 published a book of poetry called Pictures of the
Artists of
the sōsaku-hanga ("creative prints") movement
took control of every aspect of the printmaking process—design, carving, and
printing were by the same pair of hands.[98] Kanae Yamamoto (1882–1946), then a student at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, is credited with the birth of this
approach—in 1904 he produced Fisherman using woodblock
printing, a technique until then frowned upon by the high establishment as
old-fashioned, and for its association with commercial mass production.[102] The foundation of the Japanese Woodcut Artists' Association in 1918 marks the beginning of
this approach as a movement.[103] The movement favoured individuality in
its artists, and as such has no dominant themes or styles.[104] Works ranged from the entirely abstract
ones of Kōshirō Onchi (1891–1955) to the traditional
figurative depictions of Japanese scenes of Un'ichi Hiratsuka (1895–1997).[103] These artists produced prints not
because they hoped to reach a mass audience, but as a creative end in itself,
and did not restrict their print media to the woodblock of traditional ukiyo-e.[105]
Prints from the
late-20th and 21st centuries have evolved from the concerns of earlier
movements, especially the sōsaku-hanga movement's emphasis on individual
expression. Screen printing, etching, mezzotint, mixed media, and other Western methods have joined
traditional woodcutting amongst the printmaker's techniques.[106]
Earlier ukiyo-e artists brought with them a
sophisticated knowledge of and training in the composition principals of
classical Chinese painting; gradually these artists shed the overt
Chinese influence to develop a native Japanese idiom. The early ukiyo-e artists
have been called "Primitives" in the sense that the print medium was
a new challenge to which they adapted these centuries-old techniques—their
image designs are not considered "primitive".[107] Many ukiyo-e artists received training
from teachers of the Kanō and other painterly schools.[108]
A defining
feature of most ukiyo-e prints is a well defined, bold, flat line.[109] The earliest prints were monochromatic,
and these lines were the only printed element; even with the advent of colour
this characteristic line continued to dominate.[110] Composition is noted for the arrangement
of forms in flat spaces.[111] Figures in ukiyo-e compositions were
typically arranged in a single plane of depth. Attention was drawn to vertical
and horizontal relationships, as well as details such as lines, shapes, and
patterns such as those on clothing.[112] In colour prints contours of most colour
areas are sharply defined, usually by the linework.[113] The aesthetic of flat areas of colour
contrasts with the modulated colours expected in Western traditions,[111] and with other prominent contemporary
traditions in Japanese art, such as in the subtle monochrome ink brushstrokes of zenga brush painting or tonal colours
of the Kanō school of painting, works patronized by the
upper class.[113]
The colourful ostentatiousness, complex
patterns, concern with changing fashions, and tense dynamic poses and
compositions in ukiyo-e works stand in striking contrast to many concepts in
traditional Japanese aesthetics. Prominent ones include wabi-sabi, which favours of simplicity, evidence of the
passage of time, asymmetry, and imperfection;[114] and shibui, which values subtlety, humility, and
restraint.[115] Ukiyo-e aesthetics were less at odds
with other concepts such as the racy, urbane stylishness of iki.[116]
Themes and genres
Typical subjects
were female beauties (bijin-ga), kabuki actors (yakusha-e), and landscapes. The women depicted were
most often courtesans and geisha at leisure, and promoted the entertainments to
be found in the pleasure districts.[117] The detail with which artists depicted
courtesans' fashions and hairstyles allows the prints to be dated with some
reliability. Less attention was given to accuracy of the women's physical
features, which followed the day's pictorial fashions—the faces stereotyped,
the bodies tall and lanky in one generation and petite in another.[118] Portraits of celebrities were much in
demand, in particular those from the kabuki and sumo worlds, two of the most popular
entertainments of the era.[119] While the landscape has come to define
ukiyo-e for many Westerners, the genre flourished relatively late in the form's
history.[58]
Ukiyo-e grew out
of book illustration—many of Moronobu's earliest single-page prints were
originally pages from books he had illustrated.[6] E-hon books of illustrations were popular[120] and continued be an important outlet for
ukiyo-e artists—in the late period, Hokusai produced the three-volume One
Hundred Views of Mount Fuji and the fifteen-volume Hokusai Manga, the latter a compendium of over 4000
sketches of a wide variety or realistic and fantastic subjects.[121]
Portraits
of beauties were a mainstay of ukiyo-e.
Harunobu, 1750sTraditional Japanese religions do not
consider sex or pornography a moral corruption in the Judaeo-Christian sense,[122] and until the changing morals of the
Meiji era led to its suppression, shunga erotic prints were a major
genre.[123] Many displayed a high level a
draughtsmanship, and often humour, in their explicit depictions of bedroom
scenes, voyeurs, and oversized anatomy.[124] Nearly every ukiyo-e master produced
shunga at some point in his career.[125]
Scenes from nature have been an important part
of Asian art throughout history. Artists have closely studied the correct forms
and anatomy of plants and animals, even though depictions of human anatomy
remained more fanciful until modern times. Ukiyo-e nature prints are
called kachō-e, or "flower-and-bird pictures", though the
genre was open to more than just flowers or birds, and the flowers in birds did
not necessarily appear together.[57] Hokusai's detailed, precise nature
prints are credited with establishing kachō-e as a genre.[126]
The Tenpō Reforms suppressed the depiction
actors and courtesans. Aside from lanscapes and kachō-e, artists
turned to depictions of historical scenes, such as of ancient warriors or of
scenes from legend, literature, and religion. The 11th-century Tale of Genji[127] and the 13th-century Tale of the Heike[128] have been sources of artistic
inspiration throughout Japanese history,[127] including in ukiyo-e.[127] Renowned swordsman Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) and other warriors
were frequent subjects, as were depictions of monsters, the supernatural, and
heroes of Japanese and Chinese mythology.[129]
From the 17th to
19th centuries Japan isolated
itself from the
rest of the world. Trade, primarily with the Dutch and Chinese, was restricted
to the island ofDejima near Nagasaki. Outlandish pictures called Nagasaki-e were
sold to tourists of the foreigners and their wares.[81] In the mid-19th century Yokohamabecame the primary foreign settlement after
1859, from which Western knowledge proliferated in Japan.[130] Especially from 1858 to 1862 Yokohama-e prints documented, with various levels
of fact and fancy, the growing community of world denizens with whom the
Japanese were now coming in contact;[131] triptychs of scenes of Westerners and
their technology and technology were particularly popular.[132]
Specialized
prints included surimono, deluxe, limited-edition prints aimed
at connoisseurs, of which a five-line kyōka (ja) poem was usually part of the design;[133] and uchiwa-e printed hand fans, which often suffer from having been handled.[6]
The earliest
ukiyo-e artists were painters before they were printmakers. Around 1661 hanging
scrolls painted with images known as Portraits of Kanbun Beauties gained
popularity.[13] Ukiyo-e artists often made both prints
and paintings; some specialized in one or the other.[134] Unrestricted by the technical restraints
of printing, a wider range of techniques, pigments, and surfaces were available
to the painter.[135] In contrast with previous traditions
Ukiyo-e painters favoured bright, sharp colours,[136] and often delineated contours with sumi
ink, an effect similar to the linework in prints.[137] Artists painted with pigments made from
mineral or organic substances, such as safflower, ground shells, lead, and cinnabar,[138] and later synthetic dyes imported from
the West such as Paris Green and Prussian Blue.[139] Silk or paper kakemono hanging scrolls, makimono handscrolls, or byōbu folding screens were the most common
surfaces.[134]
Print production
Ukiyo-e prints were the works of teams of
artisans in several workshops[140]—it was rare for designers to cut their own
woodblocks.[141] Labour was divided into four groups: the
publisher, who commissioned, promoted, and distributed the prints; the artists,
who provided the design image; the woodcarvers, who prepared the woodblocks for
printing; and the printers, who made impressions of the woodblocks on paper.[142] Normally only the names of the artist
and publisher were credited on the finished print.[143]
Ukiyo-e prints were impressed on hand-made paper[144] by hand, rather than by mechanical press
as in the West.[145] The artist provided an ink drawing on
thin paper, which was pasted[146] to a block of cherry wood[g] and rubbed with oil until the upper
layers of paper could be pulled away, leaving a translucent layer of paper that
the block-cutter could use as a guide. The block-cutter cut away the non-black
areas of the image, leaving raised areas that were inked to leave an
impression.[140] The original drawing was destroyed in
the process.[146]
Prints were made with blocks face up so the
printer could vary pressure for different effects, and watch as paper absorbed
the water-based sumi ink,[145] applied quickly in even horizontal
strokes.[149] Amongst the printer's tricks were embossing of the image, achieved by
pressing an uninked woodblock on the paper to achieve effects such as clothing
patterns or fishing net patterns.[150] Other effects included burnishing, varnishing, overprinting, dusting with metal or mica,
and sprays to imitate falling snow.[151]
The ukiyo-e print was a commercial art form,
and the publisher played an important role. The prints were mass-marketed[152] and produced in editions of up to 10 000
copies,[82] and promoted by retailers and traveling
sellers at prices affordable to prosperous townspeople.[152][82] In some cases the prints advertisedkimono designs
by the artist behind the print.[152] In the late Edo period, Edo alone had
about 200 publishers.[153] Prints were frequently marketed as part
of a series, each print stamped with the series name and the print's number in
that series. By the 19th century, series such as Hiroshige's Fifty-three
Stations of the Tōkaidō ran to dozens of prints.[154]
A print by Kunisada depicting the woodblock printing
process. An actual print shop would not have been staffed by such beauties.
Colour print production
While colour printing in Japan dates to the 1640s, early
ukiyo-e prints were only in black ink. Colour was sometimes added by hand,
using a red lead ink called tan-e prints, or later in a pink
safflower ink in beni-e prints. Colour printing arrived in
books in the 1720s, and in single-sheet prints in the 1740s, with a different
block and printing for each colour. Early colours were limited to pink and
green; techniques expanded over the following two decades to allow up to five
colours.[140] The mid-1760s brought full-colour nishiki-e prints[140] made from ten or more woodblocks.[155]To keep the blocks for each colour aligned
correctly registration marks called kentō were
placed on one corner and an adjacent side.[140]
Printers
used natural colour dyes made from mineral or vegetable sources. The
dyes had a translucent quality that allowed a variety of colours to be mixed
from primary red, blue, and yellow pigments. In the
18th century Prussian blue became popular, and was particularly
prominent in the landscapes of Hokusai and Hiroshige,[156] as was bokashi, where the printer produced
gradations of colour or the blending one one colour into another.[157] Cheaper and more consistent
synthetic aniline dyes arrived from the West in 1864. The
colours were harsher and brighter than traditional pigments, and the effects
could be garish. The Meiji government promoted their use as part of
broader policies of Westernization.[158]
Collection and
preservation[edit]
Ukiyo-e prints
are sensitive to light. The left shows this print in 1989, the right shows the
same print after being on display until 2001. Utagawa Yoshitaki, 19th centuryUkiyo-e artists are referred to
in the Japanese style, the surname preceding the given or art name, and well-known artists such as Utamaro and
Hokusai by given name alone.[159] Japanese artists sometimes changed their
art names through their careers;[160] an unusual case was Hokusai, whose used
over a hundred names throughout his seventy-year career.[161]
As they were mass-produced collecting ukiyo-e
prints presents considerations different from the collecting of paintings.
There is wide variation in the condition, rarity, cost, and quality of extant
prints. Prints may have stains, foxing, wormholes, tears, creases, or
dogmarks, the colours may have faded, or they may have been retouched. The
colours or composition of prints may have been altered by the carvers in prints
that went through multiple editions. When cut after printing they may have been
trimmed within the margin.[162] Dealers normally refer to ukiyo-e prints
by the names of the standard sizes, most commonly the
34.5-by-22.5-centimetre (13.6 in × 8.9 in) aiban,
the 22.5-by-19-centimetre (8.9 in × 7.5 in) chūban,
and the 38-by-23-centimetre (15 in × 9.1 in) ōban[157]—precise sizes vary, and paper was often
trimmed after printing.[163]
The dyes in
ukiyo-e prints are susceptible to fading when exposed even to low levels of
light; this makes long-term display undesirable. The paper they are printed on
deteriorates when it comes in contact with acidic materials, so storage boxes,
folders, and mounts must be of neutral pH or alkaline. Prints should be regularly inspected for
problems needing treatment, and stored at a relative humidity of 70% or less to prevent fungal
discolourations.[164]
The paper and
pigments in ukiyo-e paintings are sensitive to light and seasonal changes in
humidity. Mounts must be flexible, as the sheets can tear under sharp changes
in humidity. In the Edo era the sheets were mounted on long-fibred paper and
preserved scrolled up in plain paulownia boxes placed in another lacquer
wooden box.[165] In museum settings display times must be
limited to prevent deterioration from exposure to light and environmental
pollution. Scrolling causes concavities in the paper, and the unrolling and
rerolling of the scrolls causes creasing.[166] Ideal relative humidity should be kept
between 50% and 60%; brittleness results from too dry a level.[167]
Values of prints
depend on a variety of factors, including the artist's reputation, condition,
rarity, and whether it is an original pressing—even high-quality later
printings will fetch a fraction of the valuation of an original.[168] As of 2009 the record price for an
ukiyo-e print sold at auction was €389 000 for Sharaku's portrait of kabuki
actor Arashi Ryuzo.[169]
Ukiyo-e often
went through multiple editions, sometimes with changes made to the blocks in
later editions. Editions made from recut woodblocks also circulate, such as
legitimate later reproductions, as well as pirate editions and other fakes.[170] Takamizawa Enji (1870–1927), a producer
of ukiyo-e reproductions, developed a method of recutting woodblocks to print
fresh colour over faded originals, over which he used tobacco ash to make the
fresh ink seem aged. These refreshed prints he resold as original printings.[171] Amongst the defrauded collectors was
American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who brought 1500 Takamizawa prints
with him from Japan to the US, some of which he had sold before the truth was
revealed.[172]
Many of the largest high-quality collections
of Ukiyo-e lie outside Japan.[173] Examples entered the collection of
the National Library of
France in the
first half of the 19th century. The British Museum began a collection in 1860[174] that by the late 20th century numbered
70 000 items.[175] The largest, surpassing 100 000 items,
resides in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,[173] begun when Ernest Fenollosa donated his
collection in 1912.[176] The first exhibition in Japan of ukiyo-e
prints was likely one presented by Kōjirō Matsukata in 1925, who amassed his
collection in Paris during World War I and later donated it to the National Museum of
Modern Art, Tokyo.[177] The largest collection of ukiyo-e in
Japan is the 100 000-pieces in the Japan Ukiyo-e Museum in Nagano.[178]
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