I’ve been browsing around Ukiyo-e for the last several days, just admiring the woodblock prints that have been catalogued there. I’ll open one, zoom in, and somehow end up twenty tabs deep. It’s easy to lose track of time.
What’s surprised me isn’t only the artwork, but the way the site organizes it. For something built in 2012, I'm very impressed with the process of how the site organizes such a large library of imagery:
Each print image is analyzed and compared against all other print images in the database. Similar prints are displayed together for comparison and analysis. Multiple copies of the same print are automatically lined up with each other and made viewable in a gallery for easy comparison.
Most of the prints date from the 17th through the 19th centuries, but they don’t feel distant. The flat color, strong outlines, and confident cropping feel surprisingly modern. It’s easy to see why artists outside Japan became captivated by them in the late 1800s, and why that influence still lingers.
Japanese Print Search and Database
Searches thousands of Ukiyo-e, Meiji, Shin Hanga, and Sosaku Hanga Japanese prints.
