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Edo Visual Culture

FC 84 – TokyoMarch 7, 2005

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Edo Visual Culture

Not just mapsElaborate visual culture of ukiyo-e,

wood block prints

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• Endless fascination with portraying the city itself

• Scrolls, like Kidai Shōran• Hokusai manga (cartoons of daily life)• Sketch books of every variety

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HiroshigeNihonbashi1844

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Ukiyo-e

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Views of Edo

Most major artists did series of “views of Edo”

Hiroshige’s Hundred Views Hokusai’s Eight Views

Innumerable series on specific themes – the 8 xxx, the 33 xxx, the 88 xxx, the 100 xxx

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Print culture of Edo

• huge publishing industry• highly literate population• woodblock prints as disposable pin-ups

– Famous kabuki actors– Famous courtesans from Yoshiwara

• “gesaku” fiction – style of popular, often humorous and racy, fiction

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Travel on the Tôkaidô

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Sumo

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namazu-e – earthquakes

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Mt. Fuji

• Visual icon of the city

• Religious significance (Fuji pilgrimage cults)

• Mini-Fuji throughout Edo

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Mt. Fuji

• Mt. Fuji as deity (Shinto animism, nature imbued with devine powers)

• Religious traditions of N.E. Asia include notions of “vertical cosmology” (found in shaman traditions throughout N.E. Asia)

• T’aoist – mountain hermits, aescetics

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Hokusai -- Great Wave off Kanagawa

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“Red Fuji” Hiroshige

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Hiroshige – Fuji from Tsukudajima

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Iki & Tsu

Aesthetics of urban subjectivity

Aesthetic freedom within strict feudal controls

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Iki

The bold dramaticgesture, the look,the devil-may-care

attitude

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Iki

The bold dramaticgesture, the look,the devil-may-care

attitude

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Iki

The bold dramaticgesture, the look,the devil-may-care

attitude

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Iki

The bold dramaticgesture, the look,the devil-may-care

attitude(and the ability to keepit concealed as well . . .)

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Yoshiwara – the city of the night

Licensed brothel district

North of Edo, beyond Asakusa Kannon, up the Sumida River

Courtesans and geisha

Iki and Tsu

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