Ukiyo-e

“Ukiyo” means the floating world, the world of the present. Subjects include beautiful women, kabuki actors, sumo wrestlers, scenes from history, and famous places; around the 1830s Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige made landscape a genre of its own. A few are paintings by the artist's own hand, but most are prints, made by four people in turn: the publisher paid, the designer drew, the carver cut the blocks, and the printer printed. Early prints used black ink alone; around 1765, exchanging calendar prints in many colors became a fashion, publishers then sold such prints as nishiki-e, “brocade pictures,” and full-color printing spread.

In front of a print, find an edge where two colors meet. Each color has its own block; the printer lines the paper up with the registration marks cut into the block and prints from light colors to dark, one over another.

Where in the picture do you feel the season or the time of day most?