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Ukiyo-e Museum
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 ... [...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] |
Utamaro
Kitagawa Utamaro ( ja, 喜多川 歌麿; – 31 October 1806) was a Japanese artist. He is one of the most highly regarded designers of ukiyo-e woodblock prints and paintings, and is best known for his ''bijin ōkubi-e'' "large-headed pictures of beautiful women" of the 1790s. He also produced nature studies, particularly illustrated books of insects. Little is known of Utamaro's life. His work began to appear in the 1770s, and he rose to prominence in the early 1790s with his portraits of beauties with exaggerated, elongated features. He produced over 2000 known prints and was one of the few ukiyo-e artists to achieve fame throughout Japan in his lifetime. In 1804 he was arrested and manacled for fifty days for making illegal prints depicting the 16th-century military ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and died two years later. Utamaro's work reached Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, where it was very popular, enjoying particular acclaim in France. He influenced the Eu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Torii Kiyonaga
Torii Kiyonaga ( ja, 鳥居 清長; 1752 – June 28, 1815) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Torii school. Originally Sekiguchi Shinsuke, the son of an Edo bookseller, from Motozaimokuchō Itchōme in Edo, he took on Torii Kiyonaga as an art name. Although not biologically related to the Torii family, he became head of the group after the death of his adoptive father and teacher Torii Kiyomitsu. The master Kiyomitsu died in 1785; since his son died young, and Kiyotsune, Kiyonaga's senior, was a less promising artist, Kiyonaga was the obvious choice to succeed Kiyomitsu to leadership of the Torii school. However, he delayed this for two years, likely devoting time to his ''bijin-ga'' and realizing the immense responsibility that would fall on his shoulders once he took over the school. Thus, in 1787, he began organizing the production of kabuki signboards and the like, which the school held a near monopoly on. He also began to train Kiyomitsu's grandson, Torii Kiyomine, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bokashi (printing)
''Bokashi'' (Japanese: ぼかし) is a technique used in Japanese woodblock printmaking. It achieves a variation in lightness and darkness (value) of a single color or multiple colors by hand applying a gradation of ink to a moistened wooden printing block, rather than inking the block uniformly. This hand-application had to be repeated for each sheet of paper that was printed. The best-known examples of bokashi are in the 19th-century ''ukiyo-e'' works of Hokusai and Hiroshige, in which the fading of Prussian blue dyes in skies and water create an illusion of depth. In later works by Hiroshige, for example the series ''One Hundred Famous Views of Edo'', most prints originally featured bokashi such as red-to-yellow-to-blue color sunrises. Techniques Gradations can be created on the blocks themselves using the ' technique, or brushed on by hand using '. They can also be done freehand directly onto a print, without using a printing block. ''Fukibokashi'' ' requires gradations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washi
is traditional Japanese paper. The term is used to describe paper that uses local fiber, processed by hand and made in the traditional manner. ''Washi'' is made using fibers from the inner bark of the gampi tree, the mitsumata shrub (''Edgeworthia chrysantha''), or the paper mulberry (''kōzo'') bush. As a Japanese craft, it is registered as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage. ''Washi'' is generally tougher than ordinary paper made from wood pulp, and is used in many traditional arts. Origami, Shodō, and Ukiyo-e were all produced using ''washi''. ''Washi'' was also used to make various everyday goods like clothes, household goods, and toys, as well as vestments and ritual objects for Shinto priests and statues of Buddha. It was even used to make wreaths that were given to winners in the 1998 Winter Paralympics. ''Washi'' is also used to repair historically valuable cultural properties, paintings, and books at museums and libraries around the world, such as the Louvre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nishiki-e
is a type of Japanese multi-coloured woodblock printing; the technique is used primarily in ukiyo-e. It was invented in the 1760s, and perfected and popularized by the printmaker Suzuki Harunobu, who produced many ''nishiki-e'' prints between 1765 and his death five years later. Previously, most prints had been in black-and-white, coloured by hand, or coloured with the addition of one or two colour ink blocks. A ''nishiki-e'' print is created by carving a separate woodblock for every colour, and using them in a stepwise fashion. An engraver by the name of Kinroku is credited with the technical innovations that allowed so many blocks of separate colours to fit together perfectly on the page, in order to create a single complete image. This style and technique is also known as , referring to Edo, the name for Tokyo before it became the capital. Edo Era Nishiki-e is also known as Edo-e, or azuma-nishiki-e. The technology to produce nishiki-e made printing complex colors and fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suzuki Harunobu
Suzuki Harunobu ( ja, 鈴木 春信; ) was a Japanese designer of woodblock print art in the style. He was an innovator, the first to produce full-color prints () in 1765, rendering obsolete the former modes of two- and three-color prints. Harunobu used many special techniques, and depicted a wide variety of subjects, from classical poems to contemporary beauties. Like many artists of his day, Harunobu also produced a number of , or erotic images. During his lifetime and shortly afterwards, many artists imitated his style. A few, such as Harushige, even boasted of their ability to forge the work of the great master. Much about Harunobu's life is unknown. Influences Though some scholars assert that Harunobu was originally from Kyoto, pointing to possible influences from Nishikawa Sukenobu, much of his work, in particular his early work, is in the Edo style. His work shows evidence of influences from many artists, including Torii Kiyomitsu, Ishikawa Toyonobu, the Kawamata s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_Awa_Naruto_no_fuukei.jpg "Click for more on -> Hiroshige")
_(CBL_J_2421).jpg "Click for more on -> Torii Kiyonaga")
