Ukiyo-e: 400 Years — From Hishikawa Moronobu to Shin-Hanga

What Ukiyo-e Was

“Ukiyo” was originally the Buddhist term for “the sad world” (the sadness and fleetingness of this world), but in the early Edo era it flipped in meaning to “the floating world” — becoming a symbol of the value of “enjoying the present life.” Ukiyo-e was the fusion of technique and art to print, “the scene of this town, right now, at a price the common people can pay.”

Not a painting for aristocrats, nor a sliding-door mural for temples and shrines. What the townspeople of Edo consumed as a daily print product — that is the essence of ukiyo-e. That is precisely why, 400 years later, the life, aesthetic, desires, and seasonal sense of that age remain astonishingly vivid.

The Lineage of 400 Years — Six Phases

The 400 years of ukiyo-e can be broadly divided into six phases:

Phase 1: Birth (1670s-1740s)

Hishikawa Moronobu separated ukiyo-e out from the monochrome sumizuri-e (ink-printed pictures), and the Torii school established the lineage of kabuki actor prints. The technique gradually increased the number of colors from monochrome.

Phase 2: Birth of Nishiki-e (1760s-1780s)

Suzuki Harunobu invented the multicolored nishiki-e (brocade prints) around 1765, and ukiyo-e leapt at once into the age of color. Katsukawa Shunshō and Torii Kiyonaga followed, and the precision of depiction rose.

Phase 3: Peak of Figure Painting (1790s)

The bijin-ga of Kitagawa Utamaro and the actor ōkubi-e (bust portraits) of Tōshūsai Sharaku. Sharaku, who vanished after only ten months, and Utamaro, who precisely depicted courtesans and mothers with children, perfected “face” and “expression” in contrasting ways.

Phase 4: The Age of Landscape (1820s-1850s)

Katsushika Hokusai’s Fugaku Sanjūrokkei (Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji), and Utagawa Hiroshige’s Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi (Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō). A revolution that placed landscape — until then no more than background — at the center. The breadth of vision of the Hokusai Manga and the lyricism of Hiroshige stand as two opposite poles.

Phase 5: Late Edo — Warrior Prints and the Weird (1840s-1880s)

Utagawa Kunisada, Kuniyoshi, and Yoshitoshi. They depicted the social unease of the end of the Edo era through the early Meiji in warrior prints, prints of the strange, and bloody prints. In particular, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi bridged the way to modern Japanese-style painting.

Phase 6: Shin-Hanga and Overseas Reception (1900s onward)

The shin-hanga (new print) movement of Kawase Hasui and others; meanwhile in Europe, Monet, Van Gogh, and Degas were shocked by ukiyo-e, and Japonisme was born. The sense of composition of today’s Japanese anime and illustration is also an extension of this lineage.

Articles Planned in This Series

The articles below are scheduled for release in order, following the phases above (added as they are ready):

• The Origins of Ukiyo-e — Iwasa Matabei and Early Genre Painting
• Hishikawa Moronobu — Establishing Ukiyo-e as the Single Sheet
• The Torii School — Lineage of Actor Prints
• Woodblock Techniques — Trinity of Artist, Engraver, and Printer
• Birth of Nishiki-e — Suzuki Harunobu and Multicolor Printing
• Kitagawa Utamaro’s Bijin-ga
• Tōshūsai Sharaku — Ten Months of Mystery
• Katsushika Hokusai and Fugaku Sanjūrokkei
• Hokusai Manga — The Encyclopedic Sketchbook
• Utagawa Hiroshige and Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi
• The Warrior Prints of Kunisada and Kuniyoshi
• Tsukioka Yoshitoshi — From Bloody Prints to Modernity
• The Shin-Hanga Movement — Kawase Hasui and Hashiguchi Goyō
• Munakata Shikō — Redefining Woodblock Prints
• Genres of Ukiyo-e (Bijin-ga / Yakusha-e / Musha-e / Meisho-e / Kachō-ga / Shunga / Yōkai-e)
• Japonisme — Van Gogh, Monet, Degas and Ukiyo-e
• Influence on Modern Manga and Anime

Why Read Ukiyo-e Again Now?

Ukiyo-e is not a relic inside a museum. It was a printed medium that combined advertising for the streets of Edo, star photo collections, tourism guides, informational comics, fashion magazines, erotic books, ghost-story books — all of them.

The principle that today’s SNS, games, anime, and illustration have — “deliver, right now, the air of the town, at a price everyone can pay, in great quantity” — was actually established in Edo 350 years ago. To trace 400 years of ukiyo-e is also to look again at the roots of modern visual culture.