Thirteenth art book - Japanese Woodblock Print Book Cantú Y de Teresa Collection

Japanese Woodblock Print Book

Cantú Y de Teresa Collection

Thirteenth art book ( It is the translation of the cover )

Printed in the twenty-fourth year of Meiji Era

This magnificent art book includes the work of the greatest masters of the

Uquiyo-e from the Edo era and narrates the technique and history of great engraving masters

For the Cantú And Teresa Art  collection is an honor to share this fine prints collection

After a century of civil wars, the Tokugawa shoguns (military rulers) of the Edo period (1615–1868) unified Japan and brought about more than 250 years of peace and prosperity. The Tokugawa adopted the Chinese ethical philosophy of neo-Confucianism, which provided them with the means of maintaining a stable social order through its emphasis on duty, obedience and a highly structured social hierarchy. To guarantee the loyalty of the feudal lords (daimyo), the shoguns required that they spend every alternate year (or half-year) in Edo (now Tokyo), the capital.

Commercial prosperity led to the growth of a new urban culture and the emergence of a wealthy and prosperous merchant class (merchants had the lowest status in Tokugawa society, the social classes of which were ranked in the following order of importance: samurai-warrior, farmer, artisan, merchant). 

The rich merchants of the Edo period became the patrons of the artists, actors and courtesans who belonged to the newly emerged popular ‘chonin-culture’ of Edo and Osaka, which was known as ukiyo, the ‘floating (fleeting) world’. (Merchants and artisans are known collectively as chonin, literally ‘townspeople’.) Originally, ukiyo was a term used by Buddhists to convey the idea of the transient nature of existence. In the Edo period, however, the term was given a slightly less reverent construction, being used to refer to the attitude – prevalent at the time – of responding to the transitory nature of existence by living for the moment. 

At first, ‘pictures of the floating world’ (ukiyo-e) were paintings in the form of scrolls and screens. The customers for these paintings were the newly rich townspeople and the idle peacetime samurai. Woodblock prints and illustrated books were later produced to meet the ever-increasing popular demand for ukiyo-e.