Ukiyoe prints have a long and fascinating history in Japan and in relationship with the Western art world. While they lost and gained popularity in Japan, ukiyo-e prints also developed an extensive sphere of influence and popularity outside of Asia. Japanese art, and significantly ukiyo-e prints, were extremely influential for some of the western world’s most renowned artists and artistic movements.
Ukiyo-e is connected with a social trend of middle class consolidation, the growth of cities and the movement away from traditional "Japanese academicism." Woodblock printing was more normally associated with common artists who focused less on classical themes such as scholars or Buddhism. Instead, these artists chose topics such as courtesans, actors and erotic scenes. By the late 1600s and early 1700s (the Genroken period), the word “ukiyo-e” became associated with the idea of "the floating world", "the fashionable world" and "high life." Woodblock printing began in Japan as early as the 12th century and was especially used to illustrate Buddhist documents. Beginning as single block black line prints, it evolved into "tan-e", which were black prints hand-colored with a brush. "Beni-e" and "urushi-e" ("lacquer prints") followed, using more colors and were sometimes sprinkled with mineral dust for sparkle. The technique of 3 block printing was developed and then evolved into what was called "nishiki-e" or "brocade pictures", attributable mostly to the mastery of Harunobu, in 1765 (Encyclopedia of World Art XIV 458-466).
In the 1800s, as interest in Japan and its culture increased and the ban on foreign trade relaxed, Japanese products and art forms became increasingly popular in Europe and America. Two of the most famous artists to be affected by this surge of “Japonism” were Claude Monet and Frank Lloyd Wright. The turning point in European interest in Japanese art occurred with the introduction of “port prints” in the mid to late 1800s, after the United States intervened to open Japan to foreign trade. The port prints depicted the coming of foreigners and their ships to Japan. Interest in Japanese prints grew throughout the major art cities of Europe and, in 1867, a group of reformist Japanese nobles organized a display of Japanese art for the Exposition universelle in Paris (Monet and Japan 6). The following years brought ever more interest in all things Japanese and by 1878, interest had reached an all time high. It was during this time that the artist Claude Monet became aware of Japanese arts, especially the ukiyo-e prints.
Evidence of the influence on Claude Monet’s work is illustrated by his increased interest in painting in a more decorative style. Also, his focus on depicting the same subject in a series is another interesting similarity that may have stemmed from viewing Japanese prints chronicling the same subject in different seasons or from different angles (Monet and Japan 8).
By the late 1800s, an environment of artistic exchange emerged with Japanese artists as opposed to the more commercialized “curiosity” ambiance of the past. The great artist Pissarro wrote of an exhibition of Hiroshige prints, “Marvellous, the Japanese Exhibition. Hiroshige is a surprising Impressionist. Monet, Rodin and I are enthusiastic. I am satisfied by my having made the effects of snow and flood. For these Japanese artists confirm our visual predilections” (qtd. Monet and Japan 71). At the end of his life, Monet owned quite a large collection of Japanese art, especially paintings and prints, by a number of famous Japanese artists including Hiroshige and Korin. In fact, in an exhibition mounted in the National Gallery of Australia in 2001, many of Monet’s works were displayed with samples of his ukiyo-e collection (and other pieces of Japanese art). By displaying the pieces together it was possible to see a definite relationship between some of Monet’s paintings and the Japanese pieces. The Japanese influence stretched past Monet and into the heart of the Impressionist movement, affecting other artists such as Tissot, Whistler, Manet, and Degas (Monet and Japan 72). Degas owned a copy of the Kiyonaga print Interior of a Bathhouse—not surprising for an artist who was so intrigued by the female figure. Degas and the other impressionists would seem to have been impressed by the clever use of lines to create interior spaces within a very flat limited picture plane (Mason 284).
The 19th century saw ukiyo-e prints and Japanese arts in general making a great impression on European impressionists, sometimes known as the Japonisants (Monet and Japan 72). However, the influence of Japanese art would stretch on into the 20th century to affect one of the United State’s most influential architects and a passionate art collector, Frank Lloyd Wright. At the time of his death he owned about six thousand ukiyo-e prints, not to mention other pieces of Japanese art (Meech 14). Wright also played a significant role in dealing Japanese prints, and Asian arts in general—which he saw as a business venture—in the US. While Wright had already developed elements of his signature Prairie School style before his introduction to Japanese prints, he fully admitted their importance to him. “If Japanese prints were to be deducted from my education, I don’t know what direction the whole might have taken” (qtd. Meech 21).
Ukiyo-e prints began as a ephemeral art form used less for intrinsic artistic value, but eventually developed into a high art form that could be appreciated by all strata of Japanese society and foreigners. The clean lines, pattern, colors, and simplicity of Japanese prints and in fact the Japanese art aesthetic found a broad base of enthusiasts both in the US and in Europe, a development which would affect the course of modern art history.

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