Japanese Refinement

Japan absorbed Chinese painting traditions and transformed them. Ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world") — woodblock prints of actors, courtesans, and landscapes — became the most recognizable Japanese art form. Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa (c. 1831) is one of the most reproduced images in human history.

A single ukiyo-e print was never the work of one person. It came from a team: the artist drew the design, a carver cut a separate woodblock for each color, and a printer pressed the sheet against block after block in careful alignment. A publisher funded and sold the result. This division of labor let prints be made in large editions, which is why ukiyo-e reached ordinary buyers and, eventually, the wider world.