Beyond the Floating World

This exhibition showcases a small selection of the Museum’s vibrant Japanese woodblock print collection. Made in the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries, these prints represent three different movements in Japanese printmaking: Ukiyo-e, Shin-hanga, and Sōsaku-hanga. Meaning “picture(s) of the Floating World,” Ukiyo-e spanned from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Ukiyo-e prints featured subjects as diverse as scenes from folktales and history, beautiful women (or “beauties”), flowers, and landscapes. They were also embraced by Westerners who were fascinated with Japanese art and culture. In the twentieth-century, Shin-hanga or “new prints” revitalized Ukiyo-e printmaking while incorporating aspects of European Impressionism. Sōsaku-hanga or the “creative prints” movement promoted “self-draw” work or self-expression. Beginning in the early twentieth century, this movement experienced a rebirth after World War II and championed abstraction

Artists included: Kawase Hasui (1883-1957), Takahashi Hiroaki (1871-1945), Andō Hiroshige (1797-1858), Amano Kunihiro (b. 1929), Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806), and Ichiosai Yoshiumi (1841-1899).