Ukiyo-e

UKIYO-E


of Ancient Edo

Denny Sargent

Nothing has intrigued the Western imagination more than the fantastic glimpses of the ethereal, beautiful and alien world presented in ancient Japanese wood-block prints. These colorful and intricate stylized images frozen in time have fascinated art collectors in Europe and America since they were first glimpsed over two hundred years ago. In some cases they kindled a fixation with things Japanese that eventually influenced Western culture and Western styles of art to a significant degree. Reproductions of these fantastic wood-block prints are now commonplace around the world, but at one time they were merely considered transitory images existing only for idle amusement, thus they were called "pictures of the floating world": ukiyo-e.

The Floating World

Japanese culture and philosophy has often stressed the transitory nature of life and pleasure. Cherry blossoms, blooming suddenly and just as quickly fading away, have been a symbol of this world-view for centuries. The courtiers and aesthetes of the Heian Era began to refer to the world with its fleeting pleasures and pains viewed in this way as "the floating world" or ukiyo. This way of seeing reality became widespread.
To quote the Asai Ryoi ("Tales of the Floating World");

"Living only for the moment, turning full attention to the pleasures of the moon, sun and cherry blossoms.....singing songs, drinking wine, and diverting ourselves in floating, floating, caring not a whit for the pauperism staring us in the face.....floating along with the river current: this is what we call the floating world (ukiyo)."

In the late 1700s there arose a refined movement of printmaking that sought to distill moments of experience in the "floating world" into jewel-like images that could be enjoyed and contemplated briefly by those who were caught up in the pleasures and situations that were so depicted. Thus the term ukiyo-e soon began to be used for these prints. They were not considered objects of art at all, but merely diversions and ways of conveying information. They were often given free or sold very inexpensively and discarded just as quickly with about as much thought as we give a comic book today. They were very much an art of the common "Edoite," the urbane pleasure seeker who lived or visited what was then Tokyo (Edo) during the Shogunate.

The Evolution of Hanga

Hanga or wood-block printing came to Japan about a thousand years ago along with the cultural infusion of ideas, techniques and religious ideas that came from China. The art of printing using wood-carved blocks had been used for centuries in China to convey information, preserve records and reproduce art. This technique was used extensively by Buddhists to spread the Sutras or written wisdom of Buddhism and it is in this way that hanga as an art-form entered Japan. During the time of the consolidation of power by the Shogun, the city of Edo became a new and powerful center of art, commerce and pleasure. The refined arts and literature of Heian (ancient Kyoto) contrasted sharply with the new capitol city and were there replaced in popularity by the desire for exciting communication and entertainment. The wood-block print provided the means for both and soon the printed book became a popular art form, especially among the rising merchant class. Entertaining illustrations, especially of erotic or bawdy themes, were immensely popular and Hishikawa Moronobu (among others) began to produce a number of black and white prints that were hand-painted with orange watercolor. The style of these early ukiyo-e imitated calligraphic brush technique but also began to show a freedom from the rigidly observed restrictions of the then-current style and form that came from Chinese art's adaptation into Japan. By the early 1700s more colors were added to the hanga-makers palette and a great many hand-colored prints depicting story scenes were produced. About 1745 the technique of using a number of different cherry wood plates, each using just one color and forming only part of the image, came into use. This technique was also from China, but the refinement of this method and the artworks thereafter created by that means far surpassed what was being done in China at that time and began to form the body of art we today know as ukiyo-e.




The Masters of Ukiyo-e

The prints that survive today are the unforgettable images created during the height of ukiyo-e production. The streets of the pleasure quarters of Edo, the beautiful courtesans of the pleasure houses, the famous Kabuki actors who were the current idols and stars, and spectacular scenes of nature; all were fit subjects for ukiyo-e artists. Suzuki Harunobu (1765-70) first perfected the multiple-plate technique and his tender, refined prints are fluid and graceful. The courtesan (as example of high fashion and perfect beauty) was extolled in the prolific work of Kitagawa Utamaro (1754-1806). His ingenious use of color and line makes him a favorite of collectors and his work is said to have influenced Toulouse-Lautrec. Sharaku (1794-5) produced what we would call movie-star posters and advertisements today, these fascinating and emotional portraits of the leading Kabuki stars at the time were very popular, but so bitterly denounced as unflattering by the stars themselves that this genius was dropped by his publisher after less than a year of production. Two of the most famous ukiyo-e artists, especially in the West, are Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) and Ando Hiroshige (1797-1858). Their depictions of idealized every-day scenes around Japan are dream-like and many consider them the artistic equivalent of haiku. Almost everyone has seen at least one of Hokusai's prints of Mt. Fuji or one of Hiroshige's prints from the series The Fifty-Three Stages of the Tokaido Highway. It is said that these masters brought ukiyo-e to a pinnacle of artistic excellence that was never duplicated.

Ukiyo-e Enters the West

During this period of time in Europe, there were a number of artists that were seeking new modes of expression. These painters were looking for ways to depict subjects without relying on realism or perspective. Japanese ceramics were just then becoming popular in Europe and many of these artists received packages in which these bowls and plates were carefully padded with waste paper, paper that happened to be Ukiyo-e prints. The beauty and stylistic uniqueness of these images astounded a number of these artists (soon to be known as the Impressionists) and many of them were influenced by ukiyo-e to a significant degree in their own work. Some of these artists were Vincent Van Gough, Monet, Whistler, and Renoir and such paintings as Degas' " La Melancolie" are a direct result of ukiyo-e's influence.

Ukiyo-e Today

It is ironic that the worth of ukiyo-e as a bonafide art-form was only recently accepted in Japan. The largest collections of the prints reside in Europe and America where they are proudly displayed on a regular basis. Collectors have been seeking Ukiyo-e prints for a number of years and, due to the large number produced, it is still quite possible to find beautiful prints in Japan, though it is difficult to know what exactly you are getting. Because of the transitory nature of Ukiyo-e, prints were never signed or stamped by the artists. The ones worth a great deal of money are, of course, the original prints created by the artist himself. Second or third-hand printing-runs on the same plates aren't as valuable, but even museums have difficulty telling them apart. Some of the old cherry-wood plates still survive and prints are still being made from these plates to be sold. Because many of the plates were not particularly valued, they were destroyed or left to decay. Nowadays the art of ukiyo-e is recognized as a great treasure in Japan and plates are even being re-made based on old prints so that the process and images can be recaptured.
Because the art form has been revived and preserved, ukiyo-e prints in various forms are readily available to the visitor in Japan, either to buy in shops or to view in special venues like the Ukiyo-e Museum in Tokyo. If you wish to peer into the secret "floating world" of ancient Japan, seek out and enjoy Ukiyo-e.