East Asian Languages and Societies Commons^™

Asakusa ~ Gateway To The Floating World (2019), Theory & History Of Art & Design Department, Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

Ukiyo-e Prints Course | Exhibition Catalogs

"Asakusa, a bustling district of Japan’s capital, emerged as a heart of city life during the Edo period (1603-1868). Its popularity continued after Edo was renamed Tokyo in 1868 soon after the beginning of the Meiji era. ...

Thus, Asakusa came to function as a physical and metaphorical path to and site of ukiyo – ‘the floating world,’ an Edo period term, referring to the modern habits and aspirations of townspeople. The notion of ukiyo embraced the lifestyle of city dwellers, their pleasure-seeking, vanity and devotion, intellectual sophistication and playfulness. All this was captured with remarkable exactitude in the ‘pictures …

Earthly Pleasures: Bounty In Ukiyo-E Prints (2015), Theory & History Of Art & Design Department, Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

Ukiyo-e Prints Course | Exhibition Catalogs

"Earthly Pleasures or, broader, nature’s riches and man, is a topic for an exhibition project of the ukiyo-e prints curatorial course taught at RISD in the Fall Semester of 2015. When deciding on this subject matter we were curious to see how the urban art of ukiyo-e with its focus on figurative representation of celebrities dealt with the nature theme, essential for Japanese culture and all-pervading in Japanese classical visual arts and literature. Did ukiyo-e artists include images of nature in their compositions? If yes, then who, when and how? It is with this quest in mind that a …