Designed for Pleasure: Edo Japan

Important ukiyo-e are displayed in "Designed for Pleasure: The World of Edo Japan in Prints and Paintings, 1680-1860" at Manhattan's Asia Society.

New York's Asia Society presents 140 ukiyo-e or "pictures of the floating world" of spectacle and entertainment in Designed for Pleasure: The World of Edo Japan in Prints and Paintings, 1680-1860 from February 27 to May 4, 2008. Paintings, prints and illustrated books from American museums and private collections introduce the viewer to the principal woodblock designers, painters and publishers of the ukiyo-e genre.

The exhibition's works, commercially produced and privately commissioned, describe the pleasure-seeking urban culture and lifestyle of Edo Japan. They also reveal the ukiyo-e artist's three roles as painter, print designer and book illustrator. New discoveries challenge the notion that ukiyo-e artworks were intended only for the commoner.

The show is neatly divided into seven sections:

• Hishikawa Moronobu, the father of ukiyo-e;
• Okumura Masanobu, whose new formats, techniques and coloring methods were employed in works for mass consumption;
• Suzuki Harunobu and the emergence of full-color printing in 1765;
• Katsukawa Shunsho, the painter of beautiful women and famous actors for the Japanese elite;
• Tsutaya Juzaburo, publisher and arbiter of taste;
• Katsushika Hokusai, privately commissioned paintings and surimono prints (woodcuts with poetry); and
• Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi, Kunisada and Others, exploring ukiyo-e artists, material culture and consumerism.

The exhibition's prints will be rotated on March 31, 2008 because of their light-sensitive nature.

Sources:

• Meech, Julia and Jane Oliver (eds.), et al. Designed for Pleasure: The World of Edo Japan in Prints and Paintings, 1680-1860 (exh. cat.). New York: Asia Society, 2008.
• Morse, Anne Nishimura (ed.), et al. Drama and Desire: Japanese Paintings from the Floating World 1690-1850 (exh. cat.). Boston: MFA Publications, 2007.