Japanese art Japanese art consists of a wide range of art styles and media that includes Jōmon pottery, ancient pottery, Japanese sculpture, sculpture, Ink wash painting, ink painting and Japanese calligraphy, calligraphy on silk and paper, Ukiyo-e, paint ...

, a ' (, 'optique picture') is a print designed using

graphical perspective Linear or point-projection perspective () is one of two types of 3D projection, graphical projection perspective in the graphic arts; the other is parallel projection. Linear perspective is an approximate representation, generally on a fla ...

techniques and viewed through a convex

lens A lens is a transmissive optical device that focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements'') ...

to produce a three-dimensional effect. The term derives from the French '. The device used to view them was called an ' (, 'Dutch glasses') or ' (, 'peeping glasses'), and the pictures were also known as ' (, 'tricky picture'). Perspective boxes first appeared in Renaissance Europe and were popular until superseded by the

stereoscope A stereoscope is a device for viewing a stereoscopy, stereoscopic pair of separate images, depicting left-eye and right-eye views of the same scene, as a single three-dimensional image. A typical stereoscope provides each eye with a lens that ...

in the mid-19th century. The Dutch brought the first such device to Japan in the 1640s as a gift to the ''

shōgun , officially , was the title of the military rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, except during parts of the Kamak ...

''. The devices became popular in Japan only after the Chinese popularized them in Japan about 1758, after which they began to influence Japanese artists. The artist

Maruyama Ōkyo , born Maruyama Masataka, was a Japanese artist active in the late 18th century. He moved to Kyoto, during which he studied artworks from Chinese, Japanese and Western sources. A personal style of Western naturalism mixed with Eastern de ...

(1733–95) made serious study of imported perspective techniques and applied them to his painting. He gained an interest in making

ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock printing, woodblock prints and Nikuhitsu-ga, paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes ...

prints through the artist

Utagawa Toyoharu Utagawa Toyoharu (歌川豊春, – 1814) was a Japanese artist in the ukiyo-e genre, known as the founder of the Utagawa school and for his ''uki-e'' pictures that incorporated Western-style Perspective (graphical), geometrical perspecti ...

, who produced ' 'floating pictures' using linear perspective techniques. Ōkyo began making ' prints for viewing through a convex lens: '. Ōkyo later dismissed his ', perhaps because their subjects were of kabuki and the pleasure quarters and thus considered of low artistic value. Prints by artists such as

Utamaro was a Japanese artist. He is one of the most highly regarded designers of ukiyo-e woodblock prints and paintings, and is best known for his ''Bijin-ga, bijin ōkubi-e'' "large-headed pictures of beautiful women" of the 1790s. He also produ ...

and Masanobu depict people enjoying '.

References

Works cited

* * * * {{ukiyo-e Japanese art Ukiyo-e genres