The Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg is showing its collection of Japanese prints for the first time on these shores as part of diplomatic celebrations around the 150th anniversary of Japan-German relations. It is a catholic exhibition that showcases ukiyo-e in its wide array of manifestations, and is ultimately a chronological history of the genre from the late 17th to the late 19th century. Coming from a European collection, it also suggests reasons why Europe became besotted with Japanese woodblock prints in the 19th century while ignoring many other of Japan's cultural productions.
The exhibition gets under way with 19 prints by the pioneering Hishikawa Moronobu (1618-94). These prints, in black and white, illustrate the narrative of "Drunkard Boy" (c. 1680), a Japanese mythological story of vanquishing demons. Torii Kiyomitsu's (1735-85) "The Spring Horse Dance Performed in a Parlour" (between 1751-64) is a benizuri-e, or three-color print, and shows the development of print-making away from monochromaticity, though it was not until 1765 that the Torii School fell into decline as technological advancements in polychromatic printing brought about nishiki-e (brocade pictures), for which Suzuki Harunobu (1725-70) was pre-eminent.
Haranobu's work spans around 10 years, between 1760-70. His exceedingly popular designs from 1765 focused on the manners and customs of daily Edo (present-day Tokyo) life and ushered in a print-making era that addressed townsfolk, Edo fashions and trends — a contrast to the ukiyo-e that had centered on narrative extracts and depictions of courtesans and actors.