Ukiyo-e: Pictures of the Floating World

Welcome to a 3D virtual gallery you can walk through in your browser, exploring ukiyo-e, the woodblock prints and paintings that defined Japanese visual culture for two centuries.

By the 1760s, a single print required ten or more carved woodblocks, each inked by hand and pressed onto paper one colour at a time. The artists never carved their own blocks. Production was split between designer, carver, printer, and publisher, a system that turned images into objects nearly anyone in Edo could afford to hang at home.

From Monochrome to Brocade

Early prints were black ink only, sometimes hand-tinted with orange. By 1744, printers carved separate blocks for each colour, starting with pink and green. Suzuki Harunobu's nishiki-e, or "brocade pictures," from 1765 used up to twelve blocks per image, achieving complex half-tones. Water-based inks gave vivid colours and translucent glazes impossible with oil-based methods. Demand for limited-palette prints collapsed almost overnight.

Waves That Crossed Oceans

Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa and Hiroshige's Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō became the most recognised Japanese images in the world. From the 1870s, their landscapes triggered Japonisme across Europe. Monet collected them. Van Gogh painted direct copies of Hiroshige. After both masters died, ukiyo-e declined sharply, but the 20th-century shin-hanga movement revived woodblock printmaking by fusing traditional methods with Western composition.

Works in this exhibition

Goldfish, from the series "Elegant Comparison of Little Treasures (Furyu kodakara awase)"
Kitagawa Utamaro, c. 1802
Color woodblock print; oban · Japan
Gift of Chester W. Wright · Utamaro on Wikipedia
No. 37: Miyanokoshi, from the series "Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaido (Kisokaido rokujukyu tsugi no uchi)"
Utagawa Hiroshige, c. 1835/38
Color woodblock print; oban · Japan
Gift of H. R. Warner · Hiroshige on Wikipedia
Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)"
Katsushika Hokusai, 1830/33
Color woodblock print; oban · Japan
Clarence Buckingham Collection · Hokusai on Wikipedia
Snow at Benzaiten Shrine in Inokashira Pond (Inokashira no ike Benzaiten no yashiro yuki no kei), from the series "Snow, Moon, and Flowers at Famous Places (Meisho setsugekka)"
Utagawa Hiroshige, c. 1844/45
Color woodblock print; oban · Japan
Clarence Buckingham Collection · Hiroshige on Wikipedia
Ise, from an untitled series of Thirty-six Immortal Poets
Suzuki Harunobu, c. 1767/68
Color woodblock print; chuban · Japan
Clarence Buckingham Collection · Suzuki Harunobu on Wikipedia
Hamamatsu, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido)
Utagawa Hiroshige, c. 1837/42
Color woodblock print; chuban · Japan
Clarence Buckingham Collection · Hiroshige on Wikipedia
Arai, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido)
Utagawa Hiroshige, c. 1837/42
Color woodblock print; chuban · Japan
Clarence Buckingham Collection · Hiroshige on Wikipedia
Mitsuke: Ferries Crossing the Tenryu River (Mitsuke, Tenryugawa funawatashi), from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido)
Utagawa Hiroshige, c. 1837/42
Color woodblock print; chuban · Japan
Clarence Buckingham Collection · Hiroshige on Wikipedia
No. 32: Seba, from the series "Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaido (Kisokaido rokujukyu tsugi no uchi)"
Utagawa Hiroshige, c. 1835/38
Color woodblock print; oban · Japan
Gift of H. R. Warner · Hiroshige on Wikipedia
Murasaki Shikibu, from the series Ukiyo-e Genji
Okumura Masanobu, Edo period (1615, 1868), about 1710
Woodblock print; oban · Japan
Clarence Buckingham Collection · Okumura Masanobu on Wikipedia
Hara, from the series ""Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)""
Katsushika Hokusai, c. 1806
Color woodblock print; chuban · Japan
Clarence Buckingham Collection · Hokusai on Wikipedia
Kanbara: Evening Snow (Kanbara, yoru no yuki), from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi no uchi)," also known as the Hoeido Tokaido
Utagawa Hiroshige, c. 1833/34
Color woodblock print; oban · Japan
Clarence Buckingham Collection · Hiroshige on Wikipedia
Mishima: Morning Mist (Mishima, asagiri), from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road (Tokaido gojusan tsugi no uchi)," also known as the Hoeido Tokaido
Utagawa Hiroshige, c. 1833/34
Color woodblock print; oban · Japan
Gift of H. R. Warner · Hiroshige on Wikipedia
Odawara, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)"
Katsushika Hokusai, c. 1806
Color woodblock print; chuban · Japan
Clarence Buckingham Collection · Hokusai on Wikipedia
Maisaka: The Ferry at Imagiri (Maisaka, Imagiri funawatashi), from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido)
Utagawa Hiroshige, c. 1837/42
Color woodblock print; chuban · Japan
Clarence Buckingham Collection · Hiroshige on Wikipedia
The Courtesan Arihara of the Tsuruya, and Child Attendants Aoe and Sekiya (Tsuruya uchi Arihara, Aoe, Sekiya), from an untitled series of courtesans
Kitagawa Utamaro, c. 1797
Color woodblcok print; aiban · Japan
Purchased with funds provided by Mary Diamond Stein · Utamaro on Wikipedia
Korean Embassy Parade
Hishikawa Moronobu, 1682
Hand-colored woodblock prints; makimono-e · Japan
Clarence Buckingham Collection · Hishikawa Moronobu on Wikipedia
Shower Below the Summit (Sanka hakuu), from the series "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjurokkei)"
Katsushika Hokusai, c. 1830/33
Color woodblock print, oban · Japan
Clarence Buckingham Collection · Hokusai on Wikipedia

Ukiyo-e: Pictures of the Floating World