It is crazy interesting because its a technique that has been around since like the 8th century bc. I love it because of its historical values, they were able to chronical everything and it still hold up today as a technique that is used. Line work, used the technique to print just about on anything, fabrics. I work with lots of different types of textiles.

A good chunk of the fabric i pick up/import when i can are prints that are using this type of line work, from waves, to cherry tree's. Temple and garden scenes, koi. Crazy thing is it remains timelessly popular.

ukiyo-e is amazing. I know it was used for books or whatever as well, but oh my gosh ukiyo-e. Japanese woodblock printing is also waterbased if I remember, vs oil? I read up on it a while back on wiki and elsewhere because I love ukiyo-e and before I got my blogs domain Kitsune-Tsuki.com I was trying to get http://ukiyoe.com/... but pretty sure it's still taken.

(I wanted Yokai.com but its still taken and it is an amazing website for learning about japanese/shinto ghosts so I can't complain).

To me ukiyo-e and japanese woodblock printing is just, so iconic. You can peg what year it was made just by its coloring to a certain extent and even that, they really embraced it. woodblock porn anyone?!

i mean seriously, japanese censorship became a thing because of this.

Shunga - Wikipedia

Yeah, I am finding the method, process and historical and societal aspects of it fascinating - but I look at the prints were asked to compare and contrast and it's just not connecting with me at all. The fleeting moments or 'floating' art aspect is super interesting, but I can't bring myself to connect to the actual artwork.

what are the prints?

Kitagawa Utamaro, Komurasaki of the Tamaya Teahouse, Japan, 1794, Kitagawa Utamaro, A Pair of Lovers, Japan, 1788, and The Printmaker's Workshop, Edo period, School of Yokohama, Japan.

So, courtesan, shunga, and then this random slice of life which is more joyful than the other two. I know that generally the subjects were young, beautiful women like courtesans and Geishas, and social but fleeting concepts the merchant class of these ideals.

I guess for me the fascinating compare and contrast to me is how these blocks, like shunga, could initiate print censorship in Japan while they still allowed red light districts to operate and Oiran to practice.

The Shogunate did not like it at all, the porn prints, lol. I just thought it was funny, because obviously they visited the Taiyuu and Oiran, and even had Geisha they frequented, yes they were obviously too above porn LOL

You can visit courtesans, and even pay to have access to a geisha whom is yours and yours alone, but everyone else is certainly not allowed to look at drawn gentitals! How obscene!

It's amazing how we get to see a world so long ago that is just as sexualized as modern day though.

People blame social media, tv, etc, the internet. But oh my god, how sexual was life in Japan back then that basically every wood block print artist at some point made shunga?!

so how sexual was life in all other parts of the world, but we just don't see or hear about it due to societal expectations and norms?

lol

dunno, sorry, rambling

thanks for all this - it's very interesting for sure. One of the things we are being asked to do is compare how media today and the idea of celebrity compare to these what .. 17th century pieces of art.

ahhh

well Geisha and some top ranking Oiran were definitely celebrity status

Geisha were obviously just artists and paid for their companionship, unless someone paid enough to become like their solo patron, but they were icons. Top ones were stars of their districts, sometimes of all the districts.

Oiran, the same, they were performers, and I would wager some could rival a Geisha or maybe were one at some point, but they decided to go to the red like district instead of the flower towns (hanamachi, where geisha worked, like Gion and Miyagawa-cho, etc)

But Oiran/Tayuu sold their bodies, not just their time, but there were still idolized.

Back then, it was normalized that if your husband had a lot of money, he probably had a Geisha he patronized. And if he had enough money to pay for her, he probably slept with her too.

and red light districts and courtesans were just part of the night life fun.

stares in to the abyss

this is what happens when i've been drinking and see a topic I'm absolutely obsessed with

sorry

don't be sorry! i love it!

Xiola_Linden: D:

I turned my essay in a few hours ago and fingers crossed it's enough to maintain my perfect grade thus far. It's interesting to get a lot more background that is not covered in our text, which spent hardly more than a few paragraphs on it.

The darker aspect of it is, even though these women became celebrity and icons as Geisha or Oiran, and became truly successful women, all of them were most likely sold in to it as girls.

Verinne: sounds like modern times too - like look at the kardashians

i was fortunate to see PAST: Ukiyo-e | KMKG

what fascinated me most about it was the contrast between what seems to me a very formalized art style, but depicting the daily human condition, sometimes with humor, sometimes with empathy

many details are not obvious unless one has a good knowledge of japanese culture of that time, but luckily the exhibition had helpful hints and explanations for many of the prints

there's even cat ukiyo-e, what's not to love!

Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts. There is a lot of interesting background on this and I appreciate having my eyes opened up to it. I got my paper back and it was an A+ with a comment from the professor that she really hopes I am an Art major!

My Physics prof. said the same thing to me back in the day

dkronfeld: hah! that she wished you were an art major?

Maybe