Urban pleasures and everyday middle-class phenomena--not cherry blossoms and classical Japanese motifs--have been the subjects of Ukiyo-e color woodblock "images of the flowing world" since they came into being alongside the seventeenth century's new merchant class. The genre reached its peak in the influential compositions of Katsushika Hokusai and Ando Hiroshige. This digital catalogue offers a representative selection of approximately 600 of the 4,200 Ukiyo-e works in the collection of the MAK in Vienna, mastered for the screen. They span a period of more than two centuries, and offer a substantial overview of the stylistic development of the genre, with essays on the history of Ukiyo-e and this Viennese collection in particular. A catalogue of key words includes 700 terms in English, German and Japanese; other special features include an image-based index of publishers' marks and artists' signatures, short biographies of all the artists, and much more.
