Ukiyo-e

The Ukiyo-e is a kind of Japanese xylographic Art Print. Since it is made through the impression of multiple wood matrices in a single subject (each matrix prints at least one color), it shows a wide variety of tones and shades of colors.

The term Ukiyo-e literally means “image of the floating world“, a world that is constantly changing. The word is also an allusion to the homophone term “world of suffering”, the continuous cycle of death and rebirth, which Buddhists try to avoid achieving enlightenment.

The words of the Japanese writer Asay Ryoi well explain the meaning of this term:

“Contemplating the natural spectacles of the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and maple leaves, the taste of singing songs, drinking sake and taking pleasure only in floating along the current of the river as a dried pumpkin shell.”

The rudiments of printing come from China in the Middle Ages and have their first spreading among Buddhist monks. The genre takes its connotation in the Edo period (1600) thanks to the spread of the merchants, the creation of picture books and posters of the Kabuki theater.

It was originally used only Chinese ink in monochrome prints, later some prints were hand-painted, till when Suzuki Harunobu, in the eighteenth century, developed the technique of polychrome printing to produce nishiki-e.

This type of print was intended for those who could not afford real paintings, as it was inexpensive due to being mass-produced. Ukiyo-e mainly depicted subjects drawn from urban life among the lower social classes, such as courtesans (with sexually explicit scenes that sometimes led to sanctions and convictions for artists and publishers), female portraits, sumo wrestlers, and actors from Kabuki, shown both in performance and offstage, as well as natural subjects such as landscapes, flowers, insects, and animals.

The history of Ukiyo-e can be divided into two parts: the first is the Edo period, from its origins until around 1867, when the Meiji era began, lasting until 1912. The Edo period, essentially calm, provided the environment for the flourishing of this art in its commercial form, while the Meiji period was characterized by new influences resulting from Japan’s opening to the West.

In the 18th century, with the emergence of polychrome printing, the most famous Ukiyo-e were produced by great artists of the time, such as Kitagawa Utamaro, Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Hiroshige, and Toshusai Sharaku.
Some of these artists depicted natural themes, such as the famous The Great Wave off Kanagawa, part of the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (1831), or the One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856–58), while others became known for female portraits, such as the bijin-ga of Utamaro or the portraits of Kabuki actors by Sharaku, whose innovative realism alienated him from the artistic circles of Edo, but now leads him to be considered the first “modern” Japanese artist.

In the same period, the use of perspective was introduced thanks to contacts with the West through the works of artists such as Canaletto, Francesco Guardi, and Paolo Uccello, permanently transforming the style of Ukiyo-e.

In 1868, following the Meiji Restoration (Japan’s opening to the West), the decline of Ukiyo-e began, as they were gradually replaced by photography. From Germany came chemical aniline dyes, which replaced the traditional plant-based colors and lowered the quality of the prints.
Changes in Japanese society during its westernization made ukiyo-e go out of fashion in their country of origin, while abroad they gained increasing fame, eventually influencing artistic movements such as Art Nouveau and Impressionism (this influence is known as Japonism).

Among the artists in whom we can most clearly observe the influence of Japanese art are Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and Gustav Klimt.

The most evident characteristics of Japanese art in the works of artists inspired by it are the two-dimensional representation, achieved through the use of flat colors contrasting with the background, without chiaroscuro yet still dynamic, with curved and sinuous lines that convey a sense of movement, as well as the photographic cropping of the composition and the use of essential perspective.

Beyond the artistic field, Japanese art also influenced music. Claude Debussy composed his most famous work, La Mer, inspired by The Great Wave off Kanagawa (from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji), which later became the cover of the 1905 edition.

In the 20th century, Ukiyo-e came back into fashion through the Shin-hanga and Sōsaku-hanga movements.

The Shin-hanga movement (literally “new prints”) was inspired by European Impressionism and aimed to incorporate Western elements such as light effects and the expression of individual moods, while still developing strictly traditional themes.

The Sōsaku-hanga movement (literally “creative prints”) followed the Western concept of art as the product of the artist, who should be involved in every stage of production, going against the traditional process of producing and printing Ukiyo-e, which relied on different, highly specialized individuals.

Ukiyo-e are still produced today.

TECHNICAL PROCESS:

• The artist creates the original drawing in ink.
• The assistant creates a tracing of the original drawing.
• The craftsmen glue the tracing of the drawing face down onto the wooden block, carving away the areas where the paper is not drawn on and leaving the wood surface intact where the lines appear.
• The block is inked and printed, producing copies of the original drawing.
• These prints were in turn glued face down onto other wooden blocks, which were carved by leaving intact the surface corresponding to the areas that were to be a specific color in the final print. Each of these blocks printed at least one color.
• The series of blocks is inked and printed one over the other, creating lines and shades of different colors in the final print, sometimes printing a block more than once to give greater depth to the color.

Sources:
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukiyo-e
http://www.elapsus.it/home1/index.php/arte/artisti/832-il-mondo-fluttuante-delle-stampe-giapponesi-ukiyo-e
http://www.cultor.org/Orient/Ukiyo/UkiyoE/42/index.html
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshusai_Sharaku
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giapponismo