Ukiyo-e

Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk tales. It was central to forming the West’s perception of Japanese Art in the late 19th century.

About Ukiyo-e in brief

Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk tales; travel scenes and landscapes; flora and fauna; and erotica. It 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, as well as Post-Impressionists and Art Nouveau artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec. Since the late 20th century, printmaking has continued in an individualist vein, often made with techniques imported from the West. The term ukiyo translates as ‘picture of the floating world’ and is used to describe the hedonistic lifestyle of the merchant class in Edo, Japan, in the 16th and 17th century. It is also used to refer to the monochromatic paintings of the theatre and pleasure districts of the same period, which were popular with the wealthy. Ukiyo is also the name of a type of woodblock print made by the shikomi-e class of Japanese artists in a prolonged civil war period of the 15th and 16th century during a prolonged period of civil war. The name ‘ukiyo’ means ‘pictures of the Floating World’ or ‘Picture of The Floating World.’ It is the name given to a group of works of art by Japanese artists known as the Tosa school and the Sesshōyō school, both of which are of Chinese origin.

The Kanō school of painting incorporated features of both antiquity and antiquity, and found patrons in military authorities, and religious authorities, such as Tosa and his disciples. Until the 16 tenth century, Japanese art had not been a common subject of painting, and even when they were, they were made for the ruling samurai and rich classes, when they included the main subject of the Shiki-e. The Shikomi school turned to mass-produced wood-block printing, which was soon overcome by that of the shin-hanga genre, which capitalized on Western interest in prints of traditional Japanese scenes, and the sōsaku-Hanga movement promoted individualist works designed, carved, and printed by a single artist. The earliest uki yo-e works emerged in 1670s with Moronobu’s paintings and monochromaatic prints of beautiful women. Colour in prints came gradually—at first only added by hand for special commissions. By the 1740s, artists suchas Masanobu used multiple woodblocks to print areas of colour. In the 1760s, the success of Harunobu’s ‘brocade prints’ led to full-colour production becoming standard, with ten or more blocks used to create each print.

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