Abstract
Revealing Details in Light and Shadows
Highlights
During the Edo period (1603–1868) in Japan, a time when Tokugawa Ieyasu and his descendants ruled, economic growth gave rise to a more literate, sophisticated, and affluent culture, hungry for the trappings of luxury, including extravagant art
As an artist who successfully fused motifs and ideas from Japanese and Western art, Kobayashi Kiyochika occupies a unique niche among Japanese illustrators of the Edo period
Kato Yosuke, curator of Nerima Art Museum, Tokyo, explains that “Kiyochika is often referred to as the last ukiyo-e artist” because he stuck to colored woodblock prints and “kept pinning his hope on their potential until the end, despite the diversification and development of printing techniques in modern times.”
Summary
During the Edo period (1603–1868) in Japan, a time when Tokugawa Ieyasu and his descendants ruled, economic growth gave rise to a more literate, sophisticated, and affluent culture, hungry for the trappings of luxury, including extravagant art. As an artist who successfully fused motifs and ideas from Japanese and Western art, Kobayashi Kiyochika occupies a unique niche among Japanese illustrators of the Edo period. Dealer, and collector Richard Lane considers Kiyochika to be both the last important ukiyo-e artist and the first exponent of the modern Japanese woodcut.
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