The effects of ukiyo-e

One of the reasons why living in a different country can be very rewarding is that you get to dive head-first into a whole ocean of undiscovered and fascinating areas, be it a nation's history, politics, art scene or social issues. The past few weeks I had been feeling a bit down though, mostly because it seemed that I was quite cut off from Japanese society. Because I don't have a job here and can barely speak the language it is sometimes hard not to get isolated, especially if you have Internet at home (I've become an addict!)... The salvation came on Saturday from an unexpected source: traditional Japanese art! A five minute-walk from our flat is the Fukuoka City Museum, but Vaughan and I had so far been too slack to visit (isn't that always the way?). For weeks now several of our neighbours and friends had been raving about this amazing exhibition of 'ukiyo-e' (traditional wood block prints) so we thought this was the perfect occasion to finally enter the museum. Two hours later I was completely blown away by the wonderful depictions of 17th to 19th century Japan and the exquisite craftmanship of the artists. And through my enthusiasm for the art I somehow also regained my passion for Japan ...

Ukiyo-e emerged at the start of the 17th century and became the favorite painting genre of the urban bourgeoisie. In this period the merchants, artisans and lordless samurai of Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto developed a very special way of life with its own distinct literature and art, and with an emphasis on urban hedonism and the elegant world of stylish pleasures. These "pictures of a floating world" depicted aspects of a carefree existence: the theatre, life in the pleasure quarters (teahouses, restaurants, courtesans & geishas), and travel. They were very popular, widely available and had a commercial nature, almost like modern postcards, posters or pictures in travel guidebooks. Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) is considered one of the greatest artists of woodblock prints and is known especially for his masterfully composed studies of women, known as bijin-ga (see picture above).

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), "the one obsessed with painting", made a turning point in ukiyo-e by shifting the emphasis from personal portraiture to a depiction of nature. People in his pictures were creatures going about their daily business. When more than sixty years old, Hokusai discovered a new kind of landscape drawing and published his "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji", his world-famous series of woodcuts, of which "The Great Wave at Kanagawa" is immediately recognizable.

Within a decade, Hokusai was to be surpassed as a landscape painter by Ando Hiroshige (1797-1858), who drew from nature. Following a journey along the Tokaido highway in 1832, Hiroshige portrayed the familiar environment of Edo and of Kamigata to the south. In this series, he revived the territory of travel guides, representing stops along the way by means of painterly woodblock prints. Hiroshige was to be one of the last great artists in this tradition because with the arrival of foreigners in 1868, all kinds of cultural imports came to Japan from the West and the art of ukiyo-e went into a slow decline. Its impact on European art was however dramatic: many Impressionist, including Van Gogh, were greatly influenced by Japanese ukiyo-e artists.