Japanese Prints: The Art Institute of Chicago (Tiny Folio)

Japanese woodblock prints have been available to Westerners for slightly over one hundred years. For many, these works have supplied memorable visions of a complex, elusive, and exotic culture. Even when the artists’ names and the exact titles are unknown, the prints charm and inform. For most uninitiated viewers, the distinctions between Japanese art and the artistic traditions of China, Korea, and even Southeast Asia are blurred. But the Japanese print remains a comfortable point of recognition, particularly through a handful of popular images, such as Katsushika Hokusai’s Great Wave off Kanagawa (page 268). The major collections of Japanese prints in Europe and America rival and often exceed, in quantity and quality, those found in Japan. A significant portion of Japan’s artistic legacy was exported, and its appreciation, both popular and scholarly, was conceded to the West. In 1854 Japan concluded a treaty with the United States that granted trade and fueling ports to the fledgling