Ukiyo-e

Ukiyo-e (Kanji 浮世絵, meaning "pictures of the floating world") is the general term for a genre of Japanese woodblock prints produced between the 17th and the 20th century, featuring motifs of landscapes, the theater and pleasure quarters.

Making of ukiyo-e

Ukiyo-e prints were made using the following procedure:

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• The artist produced a master drawing in ink
• Craftsmen glued this drawing, face-down to a block of wood, cutting away the areas where the paper was white, thus leaving the drawing, in reverse, as a relief print on the block, but destroying the drawing.
• This block was inked and printed, making near-exact copies of the original drawing.
• These prints were in turn glued, face-down, to blocks and those areas of the design which were to be printed in a particular color were left in relief. Each of these blocks prints at least one color in the final design.
• The resulting set of woodblocks were inked in different colors and sequentially impressed onto paper. The final print bore the impressions of each of the blocks, some printed more than once to obtain just the right depth of color.