Utamaro's Pictures Of Abalone Divers
The Japanese ukiyo-e artist Kitagawa Utamaro made a number of prints depicting '' ama'' divers—women whose work is to dive for shellfish or pearls—catching haliotis abalone sea snails. Amongst the prints are the first print in the erotic book ''Utamakura'' (1788); two triptychs called ''Awabi-tori'' (, "Abalone divers"), one from and the other from ; and the hexaptych ''Enoshima Yūryō Awabi-tori no Zu'' (, "Abalone divers hunting in Enoshima") of . Utamaro's heir published the triptych ''Enoshima Awabi-ryō no Zu'' (, "Catching abalone in Enomshima") in the early 19th century, signed ''Utamaro''. __TOC__ Background Ukiyo-e art flourished in Japan during the Edo period from the 17th to 19th centuries, and took as its primary subjects courtesans, kabuki actors, and others associated with the "floating world" lifestyle of the pleasure districts. Alongside paintings, mass-produced woodblock prints were a major form of the genre. In the mid-18th century full-colour ...
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Utamaro (c
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 ...
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