Edo period

The Edo period (Japanese: ????, Edo-jidai) is a division of Japanese history running from 1600 to 1867. The period marks the governance of the Edo or Tokugawa Shogunate which was officially established in 1603 by the first Edo shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. The period ended in 1867 with the restoration of the Imperial rule by the 15th and last shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu. The Edo period is also known as the beginning of the early modern period of Japan.

Economic and artistic development

Economic development during the Tokugawa period included urbanization, increased shipping of commodities, a significant expansion of domestic and, initially, foreign commerce, and a diffusion of trade and handicraft industries.

Related Topics:
Economic - Urbanization - Commerce - Handicraft

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By the mid-eighteenth century, Edo had a population of more than 1 million and Osaka and Kyoto each had more than 400,000 inhabitants. Many other castle towns grew as well. Osaka and Kyoto became busy trading and handicraft production centers, while Edo was the center for the supply of food and essential urban consumer goods.

Related Topics:
Eighteenth century - Population - Osaka - Kyoto - Castle towns

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The construction trades flourished, along with banking facilities and merchant associations. Increasingly, han authorities oversaw the rising agricultural production and the spread of rural handicrafts.

Related Topics:
Construction - Banking - Merchant association - ''han'' - Agricultural

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During the period, Japan progressively studied Western sciences and techniques (called rangaku, literally "Dutch studies") through the information and books received through the Dutch traders in Dejima. The main areas that were studied included geography, medicine, natural sciences, astronomy, art, languages, physical sciences such as the study of electrical phenomena, and mechanical sciences as exemplified by the development of Japanese clockwatches, or wadokei, inspired from Western techniques.

Related Topics:
Rangaku - Wadokei

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Although Japan was able to acquire and refine a wide variety of scientific knowledge, the rapid industrialization of the West during the 18th century created for the first time a material gap in terms of technologies and armament between Japan and the West (which did not really exist at the beginning of the Edo period), forcing it to abandon its policy of seclusion and contributing to the end of the Tokugawa regime.

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The arts also flourished during the Edo Period, exemplified by the school of art best known in the West is that of the ukiyo-e paintings and woodblock prints of the demi-monde, the world of the kabuki theater and the brothel district. Ukiyo-e prints began to be produced in the late 17th century, but in 1764 Harunobu produced the first polychrome print. Print designers of the next generation, including Torii Kiyonaga and Utamaro, created elegant and sometimes insightful depictions of courtesans.

Related Topics:
Ukiyo-e - Kabuki - Utamaro

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In the 19th century the dominant figure was Hiroshige, a creator of romantic and somewhat sentimental landscape prints. The odd angles and shapes through which Hiroshige often viewed landscape, and the work of Kiyonaga and Utamaro, with its emphasis on flat planes and strong linear outlines, later had a profound impact on such Western artists as Edgar Degas and Vincent van Gogh (see Japonism).

Related Topics:
Hiroshige - Kiyonaga - Utamaro - Edgar Degas - Vincent van Gogh - Japonism

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