Explore ukiyo-e

The word ukiyo, which translates to “floating world,” was used to describe a hedonistic lifestyle in Edo (modern-day Tokyo) under the Tokugawa shogunate, which took control in 1603. The city’s economy flourished, and its chōnin class—laborers, merchants, and craftsmen—indulged in entertainment like kabuki theatre, geisha, and the city’s pleasure districts.

Ukiyo-e developed as a genre of Japanese art popular from the 17th to 19th centuries, during which artists focused on woodblock printing and painting to represent scenes from history, folk tales, female figures, erotica, kabuki actors, sumo wrestlers, flora and fauna, and landscapes. Ukiyo-e pieces were popular with the increasingly wealthy chōnin class, who decorated their homes with the work.

Political reforms in the mid-19th century led to the suppression of outward displays of luxury, and artists began focusing on nature scenes. Two of the most prominent artists of the late-era movement were Hokusai and Hiroshige, and the landscape ukiyo-e genre came to dominate Western perceptions of the movement.