Ukiyo-E: Exploring the themes of Japan’s floating world

The text below is the excerpt of the book Impressions of Ukiyo-E (ISBN: 9781785259364), written by Woldemar von Seidlitz and Dora Amsden, published by Parkstone International.

The main subjects in pictures of the Ukiyo-e are people, to be precise, certain people in certain situations. The artist is mainly concerned with portraying citizens in their domestic life, the bustling activit y in the “Pleasure Quarters” of Yoshiwara and the theatres.

The adventures and deeds of the heroes, which were the focus in Tosa art, are now only depicted indirectly through the theatre – that is how remote courtly life has become. Landscapes only appear on Ukiyo-e prints, if at all hinted at, in a stage-like lifelessness; only serving people as an appropriate f rame, but never exceeding its secondar y function.

Eroticism

It is significant that the focus lies on the portrayal of scenes from the Yoshiwara as a choice of motifs mentioned. Eroticism plays such an important part in the Japanese late period that one has to question the significance of this whole sphere in Japan’s intellectual life.

Whilst elsewhere the exposure of erotic desires often means an increased personal involvement or a descent into a sub-personal animal-like manner, it means something completely different in Japan, it is in fact a depersonalisation, a dwindling of individuality in favour of conventions. The strongest socialisation of the individual takes place on this basis; for the Japanese are led into official and conventional activities by these erotic desires. There was no place where Japanese citizens of the Tokugawa period were connected to old conventions and their obligations to such an extent than in these public brothels.

Theatre

The theatre had very much the same functions during the Tokugawa period. The realistic portraits of actors and scenes of the Ukiyo-e masters show the great contrast between this newly developing kind of popular portrayal and the strictly cultic noplays of the earlier period. If these served the purpose of form and convention, the banishing of all primitive desires, unbridling them now became the basic theme in all plays.

The courtly nō plays have never stopped – their significance has been permanently preserved for certain circles of the court and nobility – but they did indeed recede further and further into the cultural background. Their preservation finally became the task of archaeologists and philologists, whilst the new popular play spread extensively and intensively. In contrast to the dying nō plays, it was a vividly progressing and strongly developing cultural matter that was backed by the entire population.

Women

The standing a woman has in any era is of the greatest significance for research into the history of religion. Whether she is seen as the symbol of eternity and as such at times enjoys cultic reverence, or whether she is regarded as a creature of a lower level and therefore has no access to the more serious matters of men, especially to the religious ones, that is all closely linked to the basic religious tenor of intellectual circumstances.

If we follow the standing of women in the religions of Japan in a theonomous sense relating to the history of ideas, we see that they were not given true freedom at any point at all. No Japanese religion gave women a completely equal position next to men.

Shintoism and the entire ancestor cult were completely oriented towards the rights of fathers. The Chinese-Confucian conventional laws that later spread further and further afield, restricted women’s freedom to the extreme in their personal life, bound them to strict customs and made them the subjects of men, also in respect of the ethical assessment of ways of life.

Gods

In view of profanation occurring in all areas, it seems natural that the inner religious object is completely dropped in the Ukiyo-e. Where Buddhist priests are portrayed, these secularised fellows, whose unworldliness was merely pretence, are treated with the mockery they deserved. But what had the name of God during that time was more goblin-like anyway in that it had sacred powers. It was by no means a sign of blasphemy, when these figures were repeatedly portrayed in their goodnatured and odd cuteness by the Ukiyo-e masters.

The seven gods of fortune were in the centre of these gods. These cute little creatures gathered together in a group at a relatively late period; their origin is quite varied: in part they originate from Buddhism, in part from Shintoism, and partly they are of legendary origin. In them the strongest religious anthropomorphism that ever occurred is represented. If their origin from the world of religious ideas could not still be felt in certain stereotypically occurring features, in various additions and symbols, one would hardly get the idea of seeing them as gods; they would be regarded as cute spawns of people’s jokes.

Humour

With regard to the special emphasis on the jocular aspects in this field we must remember that the Japanese have a very humorous disposition in the first place. Florenz once said that the following claim could be made: “That the original nature of the Japanese finds a more characteristic expression in their humorous work than in their serious products.”

This fact is especially important for the way of looking at things with regard to the history of religion. From that point we will have to learn that seriousness is not necessarily a guarantee for religious significance in many other fields either. Seriousness and gravity are not inseparable attributes of all religious life. On the contrary, in the serious, possibly dark and unreal side being overrated by the branch of science concerned with the history of religion, a psychological element shows itself, which constitutes nothing but a subjective prejudice in the field of objective research and, at least towards problems concerning religion, means crossing the line of a secondary point of view.

Polarity of Man and Woman

The contrast of the male and female sex is felt very strongly in East Asia. It seems as if something of the dualism of yang and yin has been preserved in this form throughout the times. If we look at the work of the Ukiyo-e in relation to this point, there is a massive difference in the portrayal of the characters of men and women.

From the beginning to the later period of the Ukiyo-e, the pictures of women show fine and smooth features, highly cultivated gentleness in expression and attitude. In contrast, men, especially where they are depicted on their own, are shown in all their roughness and unattractiveness, with stubble and wrinkles. Their features occasionally reveal wild passion, their positions and the tenseness of their muscles pugnacity and brutality.

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