ukiyo-e

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Japanese picture or print depicting the pleasures of everyday life; mainly produced by the technique of woodcut, or woodblock. Beginning in the 17th century, ukiyo-e became the dominant art form in 18th- and 19th-century Japan. Originally made in black and white, advances in woodcut printing in the late 18th century enabled the production of multicoloured works. Aiming to satisfy the tastes of the increasingly affluent merchant classes, ukiyo-e artists employed bright colours and strong images, and featured actors, women, and landscapes among their favoured subjects; over a quarter of ukiyo-e were erotic works. Hiroshige, Utamaro, Hokusai, and Suzuki were leading exponents. The flat decorative colour and lively designs of ukiyo-e prints were later to influence many prominent French avant-garde artists.

The art of ukiyo-e began around 1600, reflecting a society at relative peace after over 400 years of political unrest. Production was centred mainly in Kyoto and later, at the end of the 17th century, in Endo. There were three development phases. The early bold black and white designs of ‘primitive’ ukiyo-e, gave way to delicate benizuri-e two-colour prints, and multicoloured nishiki-e (Japanese ‘brocade pictures’) in the late 18th-century. In these early phases, many ukiyo-e were created as souvenirs and advertisements for local entertainment and services. Kabuki theatre was a major theme, along with pictures of everyday life, tea houses and restaurants, the female form, and legends. With the growth of censorship in the 19th century, artists turned to the natural world for inspiration, marking a new era of simplified, dramatic works that were to have a profound influence on 20th-century art, such as Hokusai's Fugaku sanj u-rokkei/36 views of Mount Fuji (1823–29; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).

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