Description: The society of Japan's Edo period (1615-1867) embraced a number of intriguing contradictions. It was a time of unprecedented stability, when Japan, previously a mosaic of violently warring feudal states, finally achieved unity as a nation. Though strictly stratified in four hereditary classes -- nobles, farmers, artisans, and merchants -- Edo society nevertheless produced a vigorous middle class of enterprising commoners. By the 1800s, commoners enjoyed the numerous amenities of Edo (Tokyo), the world's largest city (pop. ca. 800,000). They launched businesses, perfected crafts, gained leisure time and literacy, traveled a system of safe roads, and enjoyed art and poetry.

While initially print makers illustrated the denizens of the pleasure quarters, or Ukiyo (Floating World), the print also became an acceptable and affordable medium for the full range of expression common to Japanese art, including landscape, flowers and birds, and genre scenes. The most important and prolific were the 19th-century artists Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige, whose prints constitute the most recognizable images of Japanese art throughout the world. This collection of 200 prints, 100 by each artist, is designed to explore their full range of expression. The selection includes their great landscape series, among them Hokusai's complete Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, and the unfailing favorite, Hiroshige's Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road, also in its entirety. In Hokusai's and Hiroshige's prints, we see the faces of the new middle class, both the excitement and drudgery of their daily activities, and their favorite views of landmarks and natural wonders.

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