uki-e
This early example of an uki-e print uses Western-style perspective for the interior, but more traditional Japanese technique for the exterior. • Illustration — Taking the Evening Cool by Ryōgoku Bridge (1745), Okumura Masanobu • Illustration — Act Four (Shindamme) from the series Uki-e Chūshingura (c. 1820s), Utagawa Kuninao Collection the Cincinnati Art Museum "floating picture", implying "perspective picture" refers to a genre of ukiyo-e pictures that employs western conventions of linear perspective. Although they never constituted more than a minor genre, pictures in perspective were drawn and printed by Japanese artists from their introduction in the late 1730s through to the mid-nineteenth century.
uki-e
Okumura Masanobu · Public domain
- Field
- ukiyo-e
- Period
- 1730
- Region
- Japan
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wikidata · Q3547879 · wikipedia · Uki-e
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Overview
Overview
Around 1739, Okumura Masanobu studied European engravings to learn the rules of perspective. His engravings found their way to Japan either through Dejima or China. Masanobu was the first to apply the term Uki-e to perspective images. However, while early commentators credited him as the first to introduce the style into ukiyo-e prints and paintings altogether, the earliest known printed example is now attributed to Torii Kiyotada, around 1739–40, with Masanobu following shortly after and becoming particularly skilled at depicting interiors. Utagawa Toyoharu fully developed the form in the late 1750s when he produced colored woodblock copies of engravings after Canaletto and Guardi. Toyoharu was also the first to adapt these techniques to Japanese subjects. The interior of Kabuki theaters was a common subject in Uki-e prints. Interior scenes tend to be favored as it is easier to accurately apply one point perspective to architecture than to landscape.
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- Japan
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uki-e is associated with Japan.
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The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Uki-e, revision 1373920703 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
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Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Hockley, p. 79
- 2.Milone, Marco. Ukiyo-e: il periodo classico. L'Erudita. 59. 2022. 9788867707270.
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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