Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
"Ukiyo-e (Pictures of a Floating World)
For over two hundred years, 1640 to 1853, the ports of Japan were virtually closed to the outside world. During this period of isolation a unique and technically unrivaled art emerged--the Ukiyo-e woodblock print. Ukiyo-e, “pictures of a floating world,” evolved to meet the demands of a rising merchant class for an an that reflected its own interests and amusements. The subjects depicted were Kabuki theater, famous courtesans, genre scenes and famous sights.
These prints reached their summit in the latter part of the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries. The process of production demanded a team effort between the artist-designer, the woodblock cutter, the printer and the publisher. Hiroshige, Utamaro, Eizan, and Buncho are but a few of the great Japanese artists who were engaged in this popular and highly lucrative art.
Distributed in mass quantities as souvenirs, handbills, and posters, the prints became increasingly popular among the Japanese throughout the 19th century. This popularity spread to the Western world following the Meiji Restoration in 1868. The Ukiyo-e influence, both direct and indirect, upon Western art can be seen in the works of many European and American artists including James Whistler, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Mary Cassatt, and other Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.
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