Landscapes

The desire for travel in the nineteenth-century

After centuries of civil war and harsh travel restrictions, the lasting peace of the Edo period (1600–1868) has generated a real travel boom.

To ensure loyalty, the shogunate required that all feudal lords pay regular visits to Edo (now Tokyo). This forced presence led to a rapid improvement in the country’s infrastructure. With the development of a safe highway system (Gokaidō), pilgrimages, and journeys within Japan increased. The newfound wanderlust created a desire for prints of famous and beautiful landscapes, which were bought as affordable souvenirs, or to get a glimpse at prominent places they will or never be able to travel to, similar to travel magazines.

Popularity of Ukiyo-e landscape prints in Europe/ the West

As the Japanese market for woodblock prints declined in the late nineteenth-century, interest in the medium soared in Europe and the United States. Japanese woodblock prints were first introduced at the 1867 International Exposition in Paris to western audiences. The event initiated a craze for Japanese art and design, along with its influence in western Europe called Japonisme. Impressionist artists in Paris, such as Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh, eagerly collected landscape prints, which exerted a considerable influence on their subsequent arts and crafts. Paintings like Monet's 'La Japonaise' and James Whistler's 'The Princess from the Land of Porcelain' impressively illustrated the western fascination of the East.

Landscapes in modern Japanese art

As foreign interest grew, landscape prints experienced a revival within their own country in the twentieth-century through artists such as Kawase Hasui and Hiroshi Yoshida. Shin hanga (new prints) and another movement called sosaku hanga(creative prints) helped revitalized the popularity of old-fashioned woodblock prints. Naturalistic light, shade, textures and perspective have been added to show the tranquillity of human-nature coexistence. Seasons (for example early spring, midsummer and cherry blossom), the time of day (full moon, morning mist) and weather conditions (temple in snow or after rain) also set the prints to a specific time of day and year.