All about ukiyo-e

Ukiyo-e is one of the most popular areas of painting in Japanese visual arts, it appeared and was most developed during the Edo period.

The very concept of "ukiyo-e", if translated from Japanese, will mean "pictures of a constantly changing world." This term was borrowed from the medieval philosophy of Zen Buddhism. For this philosophical trend, one of the most important provisions is considered to be a full awareness of the entire frailty of human existence in comparison with the unknown Eternity. Therefore, in Zen schools, the ability to comprehend one's own life "right here and only now" came to the fore.

Long admiring the momentarily passing moments from the present time has become a paramount part of deep Japanese aesthetics and one of the most interesting ways to get as close and natural as possible to realizing your place in nature and practicing meditation in the spirit of Zen Buddhism, which is very popular today.

Most often, ukiyo-e refers to a traditional Japanese engraving depicted on wood. Japanese artists originally used all kinds of vegetable dyes that were mixed with rice paste. This engraving technique made it possible to create a complex coloring with smoothed shades of color, and this brought this genre closer to painting.

The emergence of such an original style as ukiyo-e was originally due to the active growth of Japanese cities (urbanization of the country) at the very beginning of the historical Edo period, which fell on 1603-1867. It was at this time that such a social class as the Tenin appeared - this is the class of merchants and artisans. As a result of urbanization, urban culture begins to actively develop.The themes for the unique ukiyo-e prints were all sorts of subjects of urban poetry, genre stories of ukiyo-zoshi, they beautifully played the plays of the Japanese kabuki theater in painting.

The origins of ancient woodcuts are primarily black and white book illustrations, color images appear much later. Japanese prints can be almost clearly categorized into specific themes.

Yakusha-e are inherently original portraits of the most popular and recognizable actors in Japanese kabuki theater. This kind of engravings made it possible to see a person in his creative environment and to determine which roles were most often performed in such theaters.

Shunga (translated as "pictures of spring") - in fact, these are very specific engravings with erotic overtones.

Musya-e - these are very high-quality images of samurai famous throughout the country. This theme is very popular in the Land of the Rising Sun, because samurai are the personification of the strength and indestructibility of the human spirit, they are worshiped, there are whole cults of the samurai clans, therefore engravings with images of warriors applied to them can be found in Japan almost everywhere.

• Bidzinga - fairly professionally executed images of beautiful people.

• Surimono - this is a special kind of congratulatory pictures with positive wishes, most often they depict genre scenes from the life of Japanese townspeople, they often show beautiful flowers and plants, there are images of animals and birds, various kinds of colorful landscapes, pictures of flowering trees, gods of happiness (and there are a great many of them in Japan). Also, such postcards depict objects that are symbols of goodness and happiness.

• Yokohama-e - these are very clear images of representatives of all kinds of countries (the Japanese have always perceived foreigners a little alienated), various improved mechanisms, you can also see here images of stylish houses built in the European style. This genre arose after Japan abandoned the policy of complete isolation of the country - with the appearance on its territory of the first foreign representatives. That is why all strangers on such engravings look very impressive and often ridiculous.

• Kate-ha - these are very beautiful images of flowers that opened their buds and luxurious birds with bright plumage (they mainly depicted cranes, sakura flowers, and you can also enjoy the views of flowering trees here).

• Fukei-ga - colored natural landscapes (volcanoes, streams) and picturesque urban areas with natural motives included in their composition.

In the process of working on the ukiyo-e engraving, 3 people normally took part: this is the artist himself, as well as a carver and a specialist printer. It is worth mentioning that the publisher also played an important role in this process, since it was he who studied the demand for such products and determined the circulation of prints.

The process of working on a future engraving looked like this.

1. First, the artist must make a contour drawing - this was the prototype of the future engraving. The drawing was applied with special ink on very thin, sometimes almost transparent and delicate paper.
2. The task of the engraver is to glue the resulting drawing with the front side onto an already prepared board made of cherry wood, pear or boxwood.After that, he cut out those parts from it where the paper base was completely white, getting the very first engraving form, but at the same time practically "destroying" the image itself.
3. Then several prints in black and white were made at once - it was on them that the master had to designate the colors thought out in advance.
4. The carver made the required number (sometimes more than 30) of printed images. Each of these shapes had to match one color or sub-tone.
5. The printer had to first discuss with the artist the necessary range of colors, and then he carefully applied paint and on a slightly damp rice paper base began the process of printing the engraving by hand, which was not so easy.

Thus, the collective method of creating an engraving (with the participation of a professional artist, a neat carver and an experienced printer), the narrow specialization of all the listed masters, the old guild organization of the entire production process made it possible to create a special originality of oriental woodcut.

In the 18th century, a Japanese school of classical painting called Maruyama-Shidze was formed in Kyoto on the isolated "street of artists" Shijo. Its founder was the great and well-known in the country artist Maruyama Oke... In his works, he tried to combine natural naturalism, played on the theme of chiaroscuro and perspective using the traditions of the Western school, but with the preservation of oriental depiction techniques.

One of the most recognized masters of the ancient genre of depicting the faces of townspeople in paintings is considered master named Kitagawa Utamaro... The traditional female image in his classic works has been heavily typified over the years. The ideal of the beauty of Japanese women in the works of the ancient master is a particularly elongated oval of the face and elongated proportions of the body, high hairstyle, expressive eyes, which are outlined with the least number of light strokes, very thin lines of female lips and the most straight nose.

Hokusai is another outstanding master of the old woodcut art. The classical landscape of the Far East avoided a real image of the appearance of an object, thereby trying to tell and show the philosophical ideas of the view of life with the help of natural forms. But for Hokusai, this landscape is always associated with a certain area; the master often specified many topographic features with the help of calligraphic inscriptions.