''Nikuhitsu-ga'' (肉筆画) is a form of

Japanese painting is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese visual arts, encompassing a wide variety of genres and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the long history of Japanese painting exhibits synthesis and competiti ...

in the ''

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 ...

'' 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 Miyagawa Chōshun (; 1683 – 18 December 1753) was a Japanese painter in the ukiyo-e style. Founder of the Miyagawa school, he and his pupils are among the few ukiyo-e artists to have never created woodblock prints. He was born in Miy ...

and a number of the artists of the

Kaigetsudō school The Kaigetsudō school (懐月堂派, ''-ha'') was a school of ''ukiyo-e'' painting and printmaking founded in Edo around 1700–1714. It is often said that the various Kaigetsudō artists' styles are so similar, many scholars find it nearly im ...

, 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 degree of freedom to the artist, and involved a much larger product in any case; the paintings of many ''ukiyo-e'' artists survive today and are known for their bright colors, attention to detail, and bold brush strokes.

References

JAANUS
Ukiyo-e techniques Japanese painting {{art-movement-stub