Ukiyo-e: Images of the Floating World. Japanese Woodblock Prints from the Permanent Collection
July 6, 1999—February 13, 2000
The art of ukiyo-e flourished in Japan during the Edo period (1615-1867). The movement takes its name from the word ukiyo, which was applied to artists who, in opposition to tradition, specialized in genre scenes and portraits of actors and courtesans. Because the artists were sensitive to fluctuations in contemporary fashion and attitudes, their work became known as "images of the floating world."
The forty works in the show are arranged according to four major themes common to Japanese woodblock prints: portraits of beautiful women, actors and theatrical scenes, landscapes, and folktales and legends. Included are examples by masters such as Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806), Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858).
Most of the prints on display have been given to the Palmer Museum over the past twenty-five years by Dr. William E. Harkins, a Penn State alumnus (B.A., 1942) who has been active in the Ukiyo-e Society of America since 1974. Also on view are several tools and original ukiyo-e woodblocks, as well as a complete set of states involved in the replication of an Utamaro print by contemporary Japanese-American artist Keiji Shinohara, a master printmaker of the traditional ukiyo-e technique currently teaching at Wesleyan University.
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