Illustrated Japanese Culture
浮世絵
Ukiyo-e pictures the “floating world” of urban pleasures, fashions and entertainment, alongside landscapes, stories and everyday life. It developed in the Edo period and includes both paintings and woodblock prints. Prints reached buyers through publishers and workshops; paintings were made directly on paper or silk.
01
A nikuhitsu painting is brushed directly onto its support. A woodblock design can produce many impressions. Hishikawa Moronobu worked in illustrated books and single-sheet prints as well as painting; his seventeenth-century Beauty Looking Back is colour on silk.
Single sheets were only one format. Designs also appeared in illustrated books, sets of joined sheets and fans. Toy prints could be cut out, assembled or used in games. A print’s size and arrangement often followed its intended use. Privately commissioned surimono circulated among poetry groups as gifts, rather than as ordinary shop stock.
02
Printed book illustrations helped establish the bold outlines of early ukiyo-e. By the late seventeenth century, separate sheets had their own market. A black-ink impression could be sold as printed or coloured by hand.
Tan-e and beni-e added colour by hand. Urushi-e used glossy, glue-rich black ink for a lacquer-like effect. Limited-colour benizuri-e then used separate blocks to print colours in register. These were different ways of making a coloured image.
Wealthy enthusiasts commissioned elaborate calendar prints to exchange. Suzuki Harunobu was a leading designer in this setting. The many-coloured prints called nishiki-e, or “brocade pictures”, depended on the combined work of designers, block carvers and printers.
03
The publisher planned and financed a project, commissioned the design and arranged sales. The artist supplied a drawing; carvers prepared the blocks, and printers made the impressions. A famous artist’s name therefore identifies the designer rather than every person who made the sheet.
Carvers cut away wood around the lines and shapes that will print. The raised areas receive pigment. A keyblock carries the principal outlines; proofs help plan the colour blocks. Mountain cherry wood provided a durable, fine-grained surface.
Kento registration guides locate the paper on each block. The printer brushes pigment onto the raised surface, places damp paper against it, then rubs the back with a baren. Strong kōzo-fibre paper withstands the repeated dampening and rubbing.
Successive impressions build the image. The amount of pigment, rubbing and repeated printing affect the result. In Hokusai’s Great Wave, Prussian blue and indigo contribute to the blue tones; each visible shade need not come from a separate block.
04
Bijin-ga pictured courtesans, tea-house women and other women of the city. Hairstyles, clothing and gestures helped viewers read fashion and social setting. Utamaro’s close-up figures brought faces and small movements into focus.
The Torii school helped shape early actor imagery. Later portrait designers made performers recognisable through face, pose and costume. In Sharaku’s 1794 portrait of Ōtani Oniji III as Yakko Edobei, the tense face and spread fingers convey the stage character. Costume crests can identify an acting lineage; the print’s title and performance context clarify the role.
Mitate pictures paired a familiar classical story or poem with contemporary people and clothing. Recognising the reference was part of their appeal. Other subjects included warriors and legends, birds and flowers, and shunga, erotic paintings and prints. Sumo prints also brought wrestlers and their sport into the picture market.
In Kuniyoshi’s Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre, about 1844, an enormous skeleton reaches across a triptych. Joined sheets give a dramatic story room to unfold. Warrior tales, monsters and imagined encounters belong to this narrative side of ukiyo-e.
Ōi was an artist in her own right as well as Hokusai’s daughter. In her painting of Yoshiwara viewed through a lattice, light and shadow organise the night scene. It shows the continued importance of painting within ukiyo-e.
05
In Under the Wave off Kanagawa, about 1830–32, a great curling wave dominates the boats while Mount Fuji appears small beyond them. It belongs to the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series. Scale and framing connect a dramatic foreground with a distant landmark.
In Evening Snow at Kanbara, about 1833–34, Hiroshige sets travellers against a snow-covered road and hillside. The design belongs to his Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō. Views of famous places offered distant scenery to buyers, but their compositions and weather should not be read as unedited records of a particular day.
06
Publisher marks and censorship seals can help identify how a print reached its audience. Publishers selected subjects and promoted artists; buyers could follow performers, fashions or a developing series through new sheets.
The Tenpō reforms restricted courtesan imagery and kabuki actors’ portraits, names and crests. Artists and publishers adapted through altered subjects and disguises. The rules affected what could be shown and how viewers were expected to recognise it.
07
Uki-e used Western linear perspective to create an impression of depth. Artists including Masanobu, Toyoharu, Hokusai and Hiroshige experimented with it. Imported methods were being adapted before the later European enthusiasm for Japanese prints.
Trade and travel expanded from the 1850s, bringing Japanese prints to more overseas collectors and artists. In 1887, Van Gogh painted Bridge in the Rain after Hiroshige. Its medium and colour make it a new work based on a Japanese print: a concrete example of Japonisme.
08
Sadahide pictured a foreign merchant’s house in Yokohama in 1861, before the Meiji period began. Chikanobu’s children playing in snow dates to 1887. Artists such as Yoshiiku also made newspaper prints about contemporary events. Ukiyo-e continued as photography and lithography reshaped the market for images.
Shin-hanga retained collaboration between publisher, designer, carver and printer. Sōsaku-hanga emphasised an artist designing, cutting and printing their own work. Both belong to the later history of Japanese prints, with different ideas about authorship. The magazine Hōsun helped publicise creative printmaking, while Kawase Hasui’s landscapes exemplify shin-hanga.
09
Blocks could be printed again as they wore down. The date of a design and the date a particular sheet was printed may therefore differ. A later impression from the same blocks is distinct from a reproduction made from newly carved blocks. Traditional carving and printing also continue in modern reproductions.
Paper and colourants are vulnerable to light and heat. Museums control lighting and rotate displays to reduce damage. Condition, fading and the circumstances of printing all matter when comparing two surviving impressions.
No. Ukiyo-e also includes paintings made directly on paper or silk.
The publisher commissioned and coordinated the work and arranged sales.
No. The raised lines and surfaces carry the pigment; the surrounding wood is cut away.
Kento guides place the paper consistently; the baren rubs the back to transfer the image.
Hand colouring adds colour with a brush to an impression. Nishiki-e builds colour through registered printing.
An actor or acting lineage. Names and performance context help establish the dramatic role.
No. It is a painting made directly on paper. Ōi used light and shadow to organise the night scene.
Van Gogh’s 1887 oil painting Bridge in the Rain, based on a Hiroshige print.
Shin-hanga usually retains workshop collaboration; sōsaku-hanga emphasises the artist’s own design, carving and printing.
No. A later impression may have been printed from the same blocks; a reproduction may use newly carved ones.