Ukiyo-e

Ukiyo-e is a type of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings, produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, which feature landscapes, theaters, pleasure quarters, etc. and is the main artistic genre of woodblock printing in Japan. This art form rose to popularity in the metropolitan culture of Edo (Tokyo), during the second half of the 17th century, starting with the single color works of Hishikawa Moronobu, around the 1670s. At the beginning, only India ink was used, but then some prints were manually colored with a brush, and in the 18th century, Suzuki Harunobu developed the technique of polychrome printing to produce nishiki-e.