Ukiyo-e

Ukiyo-e, literally "pictures of the floating world," is both an art movement and a genre that dominated Japanese popular art for over two centuries. The term originally had Buddhist connotations of the transient, sorrowful world (ukiyo written with the character for "sad"), but by the seventeenth century it was rewritten with a homophonous character meaning "floating" — evoking the pleasure-seeking culture of Edo-period urban life.

The subjects of ukiyo-e reflected this world of transient pleasures: kabuki actors (yakusha-e), beautiful women of the pleasure quarters (bijin-ga), landscapes (fukeiga), and scenes of everyday life. The genre evolved over two centuries, from the early monochrome prints of Hishikawa Moronobu through Harunobu's full-color nishiki-e to the towering achievements of Hokusai, Hiroshige, and Kuniyoshi in the nineteenth century.

Ukiyo-e prints were the popular media of their time — affordable, widely distributed, and reflective of current tastes and trends. They were not initially considered high art in Japan, a status that changed partly through Western appreciation following the opening of Japan in the 1850s. The enthusiasm of European Impressionists for ukiyo-e (termed "Japonisme") helped establish the prints as a major art form in both Eastern and Western art history. Today, ukiyo-e is recognized as one of Japan's most significant cultural contributions.