Fleeting Pleasures: Japanese Woodblock Prints from the Georgia Museum of Art

Fleeting Pleasures

Japanese Woodblock Prints from the Georgia Museum of Art

The Japanese word ukiyo literally means “the floating world.” Although it was originally a Buddhist term used to describe life’s transient or fleeting quality, by the 17th century, ukiyo came to describe the pleasures and mores found within the city of Edo. As Edo grew into modern-day Tokyo, it developed a robust middle class that had a major impact on the character of the city.

The world of the geisha, the yoshiwara teahouse and the Kabuki drama were all available to Edo’s affluent citizens, and ukiyo reflected this pleasure-based cultural atmosphere.

Ukiyo-e (“pictures of the floating world”) are woodblock prints created through an elaborate and highly technical process. First, an artist carves a wood plank with the basic outlines of the design, based on a drawing made earlier. He or she then covers the block with black ink, places a sheet of mulberry paper on top, and rubs until the ink is stamped onto the surface of the paper.

The resulting print shows a black outline of the design. The artist then adds color with a series of other carved planks, each plank embellishing the design with an additional color. This process allowed an artist to produce a large number of images, and the mass production of these prints made them relatively affordable.

Artists who created ukiyo-e often drew their subject matter from the bustling metropolis of Edo and the regions surrounding it, which appealed to the newly empowered middle class. Typical subjects for these prints include scenes taken from Kabuki dramas, portraits of well-known actors and courtesans and illustrations of everyday life, especially in Edo’s entertainment districts.

These subjects later expanded to include images of the natural world and depictions of famous sights across Japan.

Drawn from the Georgia Museum of Art’s permanent collection, this exhibition of woodblock prints by some of the best known and most important ukiyo-e artists explores this “floating world” of sensuous Edo culture. “Fleeting Pleasures: Japanese Woodblock Prints from the Georgia Museum of Art” was organized by Joan Tkacs, a graduate student in art history at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia, under the supervision of the Georgia Museum of Art’s Pierre Daura Curator of European Art, Lynn Boland.

Front, top: Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858), Nihonbashi Bridge in the Rain, 1832. GMOA 1966.1542 Front, bottom: Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849), The Great Wave off Kanagawa, 1829–32. GMOA 1953.1277 Back: Toyohara Kunichika (Japanese, 1835–1900), Scene from Kabuki Drama, ca. 1880. GMOA 1987.0048.002