Designed for Pleasure: The World of Edo Japan in Prints and Paintings, 1680-1860

First Edition, 2008. 256 pages. Book measures 9.5 x 12 inches.

Thick French-fold wrappers. Published on the occasion of the exhibition organized by Asia Society  and Japanese Art Society of America. Includes essays by eight scholars in the field. Fully illustrated throughout with color plates.

Designed for Pleasure brings together paintings, prints, and illustrated books featuring images known as ukiyo-e, or pictures of the floating world, centered in Edo (modern Tokyo) during the period between 1680 and 1860, when Japan transformed itself from an agrarian to a booming commercial economy. By 1710, Edo was the largest city in the world, with a population of over a million. The carefully selected images present the principals of that realm—the actor, the artist, the courtesan, the poet, the publisher, the patron—and they also reveal the confluences and contradictions in a time of enormous social, cultural, and economic change in Japan.

Building on the existing body of ukiyo-e scholarship, a team of renowned experts presents a new perspective and an expanded view of the visual culture of Edo Japan and the way in which art became more accessible to a new class beyond the ruling elite. The volume authors showcase individuals—adding to the already substantial scholarship on Hokusai, Hiroshige, and Utamaro—including the father of ukiyo-e, Hishikawa Moronobu; the artist and publisher Okumura Masanobu; the color innovator Suzuki Harunobu; the master publisher Tsutaya Juzaburo; and the brilliant painter Katsukawa Shunsho. Rather than focus on one artist, one school, or one artistic medium, Designed for Pleasure presents the best of ukiyo-e, in their three primary manifestations: paintings, prints, and illustrated books. 

Corners show light bumping. Binding is square and tight. Very Good+ condition.