Fifty-Three Views of the Floating World: Japanese Woodblock Prints from the Collection of Mount Holyoke College

In the late 17th century, the term "ukiyo," referring to the Buddhist concept of the sad or wretched world here on earth, began to be written with a different character that expressed the notion of a floating world, the world of transient earthly existence. Coupled with the term "e" ("pictures"), it became the name given to the painting, drawing, and especially woodblock printing, of a school of artists catering to the chonin, the townspeople of the city of Edo (now Tokyo), rather than to the Tokugawa ruling class.

Early ukiyo-e masters in woodblock printing specialized in images of the fleeting pleasures of this earth, including courtesans and beautiful women as well as actors and erotic scenes. In the 19th century, images of historical figures and incidents from legend as well as landscape views of popular tourist attractions were added to this basic repertoire of the "floating world."

The making of these prints was a commercial and collaborative effort. The artist made a line drawing in ink with colors, if any, indicated; an assistant traced the drawing onto very thin paper; the block-maker pasted the copy face down on a block, cut away everything except the lines, inked these raised lines, and placed paper over the lock, rubbing the back of the paper and lifting it to create a black-and-white print. For a color print, the block-maker made several of these black-and-white prints, pasted them facedown on blocks, and carved the blocks for each color. A printer then made a series of black-and-white prints, mixed colors with size made from rice to make them a bit thicker, wiped the colors onto the blocks, and printed the colors onto the black-and-white prints.

The 53 prints in this exhibition, organized by the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, ranged in date from around the 1680s to the 1860s. The exhibition was supported by the generosity of the Smart Family Foundation. There are works that appeared in this exhibition that were loans to the Loeb and therefore do not appear on this website.