Japanese Art and It’s Influence on The Western World
A priority on the agenda of Tokugawa Ieyasu, when he was granted the title of shogun in 1603, was to limit foreign travel to Japan and keep common Japanese people from leaving the country. This was the beginning of the Tokugawa period, also known as the Edo period, a time of peace, political stability, economic prosperity, and the rise of culture. The first associations that cross my mind when I think of Japan— haiku, the tea ceremony, kabuki, wood-block prints, Japanese porcelain, bonsai trees, gardening —were spurred development during the Edo period, as this was the time when the traditions of the past were revived and refined.
Katsushuka Hokusai (1760–1849) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) were one of the prominent artists of the period. They relovutionized Ukiyo-e (a Japanese genre of painting and woodblock printing) with focusing on nature and daily life in Japan. Hokusai, in his early works, depicted exciting Kabuki actors of the urban pleasure distict, and later conveyed the beauty of landscapes in his masterpieces. One of his works is the most universally known Japanese piece of art — the Great Wave of Kanagawa.
