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Ukiyo-e Techniques
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. The term translates as "picture of the floating world". In 1603, the city of Edo (Tokyo) became the seat of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate. The ''chōnin'' class (merchants, craftsmen and workers), positioned at the bottom of the social order, benefited the most from the city's rapid economic growth, and began to indulge in and patronise the entertainment of kabuki theatre, geisha, and courtesans of the pleasure districts; the term ("floating world") came to describe this hedonistic lifestyle. Printed or painted ukiyo-e works were popular with the ''chōnin'' class, who had become wealthy enough to afford to decorate their homes with them. The earliest ukiyo-e works emer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ukiyo-e Imagebox
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. The term translates as "picture of the floating world". In 1603, the city of Edo (Tokyo) became the seat of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate. The ''chōnin'' class (merchants, craftsmen and workers), positioned at the bottom of the social order, benefited the most from the city's rapid economic growth, and began to indulge in and patronise the entertainment of kabuki theatre, geisha, and courtesans of the pleasure districts; the term ("floating world") came to describe this hedonistic lifestyle. Printed or painted ukiyo-e works were popular with the ''chōnin'' class, who had become wealthy enough to afford to decorate their homes with them. The earliest ukiyo-e works eme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ukiyo
is the Japanese term used to describe the urban lifestyle and culture, especially the pleasure-seeking aspects, of Edo period Japan (1600–1867). culture developed in Yoshiwara, the licensed red-light district of Edo (modern-day Tokyo), the site of many brothels frequented by Japan's growing middle class. A prominent author of the genre was Ihara Saikaku, who wrote ''The Life of an Amorous Woman''. culture also arose in other cities, such as Osaka and Kyoto. The famous Japanese woodblock prints known as , or "pictures of the floating world", had their origins in these districts, and often depicted scenes of the floating world itself such as geisha, kabuki actors, sumo wrestlers, samurai, merchants, and prostitutes. The term in medieval Japan was associated with Buddhism and meant "this transient, unreliable world". When written as meaning "the floating world", is also an ironic, homophonous allusion to the earlier Buddhist term , referring to the earthly plane of deat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hiroshige
Utagawa Hiroshige (, also ; ja, 歌川 広重 ), born Andō Tokutarō (; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format landscape series ''The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō'' and for his vertical-format landscape series ''One Hundred Famous Views of Edo''. The subjects of his work were atypical of the ''ukiyo-e'' genre, whose typical focus was on beautiful women, popular actors, and other scenes of the urban pleasure districts of Japan's Edo period (1603–1868). The popular series '' Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji'' by Hokusai was a strong influence on Hiroshige's choice of subject, though Hiroshige's approach was more poetic and ambient than Hokusai's bolder, more formal prints. Subtle use of color was essential in Hiroshige's prints, often printed with multiple impressions in the same area and with extensive use of '' bokashi'' (color gradation), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Great Wave Off Kanagawa
is a woodblock print by Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist Hokusai, created in late 1831 during the Edo period of Japanese history. The print depicts three boats moving through a storm-tossed sea, with a large wave forming a spiral in the centre and Mount Fuji visible in the background. The print is Hokusai's best-known work and the first in his series ''Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji'', in which the use of Prussian blue revolutionized Japanese prints. The composition of ''The Great Wave'' is a synthesis of traditional Japanese prints and use of Perspective (graphical), graphical perspective developed in Europe, and earned him immediate success in Japan and later in Europe, where Hokusai's art inspired works by the Impressionism, Impressionists. Several museums throughout the world hold copies of ''The Great Wave'', many of which came from 19th-century private collections of Japanese prints. ''The Great Wave Kanagawa'' has been described as "possibly the most reproduced image in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hokusai
, known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. He is best known for the woodblock printing in Japan, woodblock print series ''Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'', which includes the iconic print ''The Great Wave off Kanagawa''. Hokusai was instrumental in developing ''ukiyo-e'' from a style of portraiture largely focused on courtesans and actors into a much broader style of art that focused on landscapes, plants, and animals. Hokusai created the monumental ''Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'' as a response to a domestic travel boom in Japan and as part of a personal interest in Mount Fuji. It was this series, specifically, ''The Great Wave off Kanagawa'' and ''Fine Wind, Clear Morning'', that secured his fame both in Japan and overseas. Hokusai was best known for his woodblock ukiyo-e prints, but he worked in a variety of mediums including painting and book illustration. Starting as a young child, he continued workin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sharaku
Tōshūsai Sharaku ( ja, 東洲斎 写楽; active 1794–1795) was a Japanese ukiyo-e print designer, known for his portraits of kabuki actors. Neither his true name nor the dates of his birth or death are known. His active career as a woodblock artist spanned ten months; his prolific work met disapproval and his output came to an end as suddenly and mysteriously as it had begun. His work has come to be considered some of the greatest in the ukiyo-e genre. Sharaku made mostly ''yakusha-e'' portraits of kabuki actors. His compositions emphasize poses of dynamism and energy, and display a realism unusual for prints of the time—contemporaries such as Utamaro represented their subjects with an idealized beauty, while Sharaku did not shy from showing unflattering details. This was not to the tastes of the public, and the enigmatic artist's production ceased in the first month of 1795. His mastery of the medium with no apparent apprenticeship has drawn much speculation, and rese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_Awa_Naruto_no_fuukei.jpg "Click for more on -> Hiroshige")
