Japanese Woodblock Prints. 40th Ed.

Japanese woodblock printing depicted breathtaking landscapes, erotic compulsion, ghosts and demons tormenting the living, and made sumo wrestlers and kabuki actors rock stars . This compendium brings together the most exceptional prints from the period 1680 to 1938 and draws on the finest works from museums and private collections around the world.

A Visual History of Japanese Masterpieces

From Edouard Manet's portrait of the naturalist writer Émile Zola sitting among his Japanese art relics to Van Gogh's meticulous copies of the Hiroshige prints he devotedly collected, the pioneers of 19th-century European modernism made no secret of their love for Japanese art. In all its sensuality, freedom, and effervescence, the woodblock print is single-handedly credited with the wave of Japonaiserie that first captivated France and later Europe, yet it often remains misunderstood as an "exotic" artifact that helped inspire Western creativity.

The fact is that Japanese woodblock printing is a phenomenon for which there is no Western equivalent. Some of the most groundbreaking ideas in modern art, including, as Karl Marx said, "everything solid melts into air," were invented in Japan in the 1700s and expressed as never before in the designs of masters like Hokusai, Utamaro, and Hiroshige in the early 19th century.

This volume, based on the original XXL monograph, lifts the veil on a beloved yet little-understood art form by presenting the most exceptional Japanese woodblock prints in their historical context. Spanning the 17th-century development of the decadent ukiyo-e, or "pictures of the floating world," to the decline and subsequent resurgence of prints in the early 20th century, the images collected in this edition provide an unparalleled account not only of a genre unique in art history but also of Japan's changing customs and cultural development.

From mystical mountains to snow-capped passes, from samurai swordsmen to prostitutes in shop windows, each piece is explored as a work of art in its own right, revealing the stories and people behind the motifs. We discover the four pillars of woodblock printing (beauties, actors, landscapes, and compositions of birds and flowers) alongside depictions of sumo wrestlers, kabuki actors, or seductive courtesans—rock stars who populated the "floating world" and whose fans fueled the frenetic production of woodblock prints. We delve into the horrific and the dark in prints where demons, ghosts, man-eaters, and otherworldly creatures torment the living: astonishing images that continue to influence Japanese manga, films, and video games to this day. We witness how, in their incredible breadth, from everyday scenes to eroticism, from the martial to the mythological, these works are united by the technical mastery and unerring eye of their creators, and how, with enormous ingenuity and ironic wit, publishers and artists struggled to evade government censorship.

This edition brings together the best existing impressions from museums and private collections around the world in a light and accessible format, offering extensive descriptions to guide us through this frenetic period in the history of Japanese art.