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Ukiyo-e Artists
is a genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk tales; travel scenes and landscapes; flora and fauna; and erotica. In 1603, the city of Edo (Tokyo) became the seat of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate. The class (merchants, craftsmen and workers), positioned at the bottom of the social order, benefited the most from the city's rapid economic growth. They began to indulge in and patronize the entertainment of kabuki theatre, geisha, and courtesans of the pleasure districts. The term ('floating world') came to describe this hedonistic lifestyle. Printed or painted ukiyo-e works were popular with the class, who had become wealthy enough to afford to decorate their homes with them. The earliest ukiyo-e works emerged in the 1670s, with Hishikawa Moronobu's paintings and monochromatic prints of beaut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beauty Looking Back
Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes them pleasure, pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, art and taste are the main subjects of aesthetics, one of the fields of study within philosophy. As a positive aesthetic value, it is contrasted with Unattractiveness, ugliness as its negative counterpart. One difficulty in understanding beauty is that it has both objective and subjective aspects: it is seen as a property of things but also as depending on the emotional response of observers. Because of its subjective side, beauty is said to be "in the eye of the beholder". It has been argued that the ability on the side of the subject needed to perceive and judge beauty, sometimes referred to as the "sense of taste", can be trained and that the verdicts of experts coincide in the long run. This suggests the standards of validity of judgments of beauty are intersubjective, i.e. dependent on a group of j ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nikuhitsu-ga
''Nikuhitsu-ga'' (肉筆画) is a form of Japanese painting in the ''ukiyo-e'' art style. The woodblock prints of this genre have become so famous in the West as to become almost synonymous with the term "ukiyo-e", but most ''ukiyo-e'' artists were painters as well as printmakers, with much the same style and subjects. Some turned to painting at the end of a career in prints, while some, like Miyagawa Chōshun and a number of the artists of the Kaigetsudō school, never made prints and only worked in paintings. Though advances in printing technology advanced over the course of the Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ... (1603–1868), allowing for the production of more and more elaborate and colorful prints, the medium of painting always allowed a greater d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yūkaku
were legal red-light districts in Japanese history, where both brothels and prostitutes Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-p ... - known collectively as , the higher ranks of which were known as - recognised by the Japanese government operated. 郭大百科事典. 第25巻』 (平凡社, 1939) Though prostitution was, officially, legal to engage in and pay for only in these areas, there were a number of places where prostitutes and brothels operated illegally, known as , the generic name for all unlicensed red-light districts other than Yoshiwara (later including both Shimabara and Shinmachi).平田（1997）109頁。 In January 1946, GHQ issued an order (SCAPIN 642) nationwide to abolish Japan's legalised system of prostitution, with brothels in the areas ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oiran
is a collective term for the highest-ranking courtesans in Japanese history, who were considered to be above common prostitutes (known as ) for their more refined entertainment skills and training in the traditional arts. Divided into a number of ranks within this category, the highest rank of were the , who were considered to be set apart from other due to their intensive training in the traditional arts and the fact that they lived and worked in Kyoto, the political capital of Japan, which remained the cultural heart of the country when the seat of political power moved to Tokyo. Though by definition also engaged in prostitution, higher-ranking had a degree of choice in which customers they took. The term originated in Yoshiwara, the red light district of Edo in the 1750s, and is applied to all ranks of high level courtesans in historical Japan. The services of were well known for being exclusive and expensive, with typically only entertaining the upper classes o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geisha
{{Culture of Japan, Traditions, Geisha {{nihongo, Geisha{{efn, {{IPAc-en, lang, ˈ, ɡ, eɪ, ., ʃ, ə, {{IPA, ja, ɡei.ɕa, ɡeː-, lang{{cite book, script-title=ja:NHK日本語発音アクセント新辞典, publisher=NHK Publishing, editor=NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, date=24 May 2016, lang=ja, 芸者, also known as {{nihongo, , 芸子, geiko{{efn, {{IPA, ja, ɡei.ko, ɡeː-, lang, {{citation needed span, in Kyoto and Kanazawa, date=May 2025 or {{nihongo, , 芸妓, geigi{{efn, {{IPA, ja, ɡeꜜi.ɡi, ɡeꜜː-, -ŋi, lang , are female Japanese people, Japanese performing arts, performing artists and entertainers trained in performing arts#Japan, traditional Japanese performing arts styles, such as Japanese traditional dance, dance, Music of Japan, music and singing, as well as being proficient conversationalists and hosts. Their distinct appearance is characterised by long, trailing kimono, nihongami#geisha, traditional hairstyles and {{transliteration, ja, o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Four Occupations
The four occupations (), or "four categories of the people" (),Hansson, pp. 20-21Brook, 72. was an occupation classification used in ancient China by either Confucian or Legalist scholars as far back as the late Zhou dynasty and is considered a central part of the fengjian social structure (c. 1046–256 BC).Fairbank, 108. These were the '' shi'' (warrior nobles, and later on gentry scholars), the '' nong'' (peasant farmers), the ''gong'' (artisans and craftsmen), and the '' shang'' (merchants and traders). The four occupations were not always arranged in this order. The four categories were not socioeconomic classes; wealth and standing did not correspond to these categories, nor were they hereditary. The system did not factor in all social groups present in premodern Chinese society, and its broad categories were more an idealization than a practical reality. The commercialization of Chinese society in the Song and Ming periods further blurred the lines between these four oc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chōnin
was a social class that emerged in Japan during the early years of the Tokugawa period. In the social hierarchy, it was considered subordinate to the samurai warrior class. Social class The ''chōnin'' emerged in ''joka-machi'' or castle towns during the sixteenth century. The majority of ''chōnin'' were merchants, but some were craftsmen. were not considered ''chōnin''. Later, peasants, servants, and workers were also considered members of the social class. While ''chōnin'' are not as well known to non-Japanese as other social classes in Japan, they played a key role in the development of Japanese cultural products such as ''ukiyo-e'', '' rakugo'', and handicrafts. Aesthetic ideals such as ''iki'', ''tsū'', and '' wabi-sabi'' were also developed among the ''chōnin''. This association with cultural development emerged as a way for members of the class to break the strict social barriers that prevented individuals from ascending in the social hierarchy. Members of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tokugawa Shogunate
The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars of the Sengoku period following the collapse of the Ashikaga shogunate. Ieyasu became the ''shōgun,'' and the Tokugawa clan governed Japan from Edo Castle in the eastern city of Edo (Tokyo), Edo (Tokyo) along with the ''daimyō'' lords of the ''samurai'' class. The Tokugawa shogunate organized Japanese society under the strict Edo society, Tokugawa class system and banned most foreigners under the isolationist policies of ''Sakoku'' to promote political stability. The Tokugawa shoguns governed Japan in a feudal system, with each ''daimyō'' administering a ''Han system, han'' (feudal domain), although the country was still nominally organized as provinces of Japan, imperial provinces. Under the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan experienced rapid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tokyo
Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most populous urban areas in the world. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes Tokyo and parts of six neighboring Prefectures of Japan, prefectures, is the most populous metropolitan area in the world, with 41 million residents . Lying at the head of Tokyo Bay, Tokyo is part of the Kantō region, on the central coast of Honshu, Japan's largest island. It is Japan's economic center and the seat of the Government of Japan, Japanese government and the Emperor of Japan. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government administers Tokyo's central Special wards of Tokyo, 23 special wards, which formerly made up Tokyo City; various commuter towns and suburbs in Western Tokyo, its western area; and two outlying island chains, the Tokyo Islands. Although most of the w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edo (Tokyo)
Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate. Edo grew to become one of the largest cities in the world under the Tokugawa. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the Meiji government renamed Edo to ''Tokyo'' (, "Eastern Capital") and relocated the Emperor from the historic capital of Kyoto to the city. The era of Tokugawa rule in Japan from 1603 to 1868 is known as the Edo period. History Before Tokugawa Before the 10th century, there is no mention of Edo in historical records, but for a few settlements in the area. That name for the area first appears in the Azuma Kagami chronicles, which have probably been used since the second half of the Heian period. Edo's development started in the late 11th century with a branch of the called the coming from the banks of the then- I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shunga
is a type of Japanese erotic art typically executed as a kind of ukiyo-e, often in Woodcut, woodblock print format. While rare, there are also extant erotic painted handscrolls which predate ukiyo-e. Translated literally, the Japanese word ''shunga'' means ''picture of spring''; "spring" is a common euphemism for sex. Shunga, as a subset of ukiyo-e, was enjoyed by all social groups in the Edo period, despite being out of favor with the shogunate. The ukiyo-e movement sought to idealize contemporary urban living and appeal to the new chōnin class. Shunga followed the aesthetics of everyday life and widely varied in its depictions of sexuality. Most ukiyo-e artists made shunga at some point in their careers. History Shunga was heavily influenced by illustrations in Chinese medicine manuals beginning in the Muromachi era (1336 to 1573). Zhou Fang (Tang Dynasty), Zhou Fang, a notable Tang dynasty, Tang-dynasty Chinese painter, is also thought to have been influential. He, li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wildlife Of Japan
Wildlife refers to undomesticated animals and uncultivated plant species which can exist in their natural habitat, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted for sport. Wildlife can be found in all ecosystems. Deserts, plains, grasslands, woodlands, forests, and other areas including the most developed urban areas, all have distinct forms of wildlife. While the term in popular culture usually refers to animals that are untouched by human factors, most scientists agree that much wildlife is affected by human activities. Some wildlife threaten human safety, health, property and quality of life. However, many wild animals, even the dangerous ones, have value to human beings. This value might be economic, educational, or emotional in nature. Humans have historically tended to separate civilization from wildlife in a number of ways, i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
