The Tokyo Landscape in Woodblock Prints : Urban Geography in Visual Art

米家 志乃布, KOMEIE Shinobu

doi:10.15002/00030889

This study aims to clarify the characteristics of urban landscapes depicted by traditional woodblock prints in Tokyo. Ukiyo-e woodblock prints in Japan developed as a medium for book illustrations and advertisements in the popular culture of the Japanese people during the Edo period. Woodblock prints are produced by a division of labor among specialized artisans and require a unique multicolor printing technique. In the West, famous landscape prints of Edo by Hiroshige, Hokusai, and others were highly regarded as works of visual art, and Ukiyo-e prints were exported from Japan to other countries. After the Meiji period (1868–1912), printing techniques such as copperplate, lithography, and photographic were introduced from the West, and woodblock prints declined in Japan. However, from the late Meiji period to the Taisho period （1912–1926）, “Shin Hanga” woodblock prints began to be produced as works of visual art. Additionally, after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 devastated Tokyo, the goal of the reconstruction project was not to revive the traditional Edo landscape but to create a new Tokyo that could compete with the West. Against this backdrop, in the 1930s, woodblock print artists began to depict the natural scenery that had existed since Edo. However, as woodblock-printed landscapes of this period were created for exporting purposes, they were styled as traditional and exotic Japanese landscapes favored by Westerners.

The Tokyo Landscape in Woodblock Prints : Urban Geography in Visual Art

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