Editing Utamaro (section)

==Background==

[[Ukiyo-e]] art flourished in Japan during the [[Edo period]] from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.  The art form took as its primary subjects [[oiran|courtesans]], [[kabuki]] actors, and others associated with the ''[[ukiyo]]'' "floating world" lifestyle of the [[Yūkaku|pleasure districts]]. Alongside paintings, mass-produced [[Woodblock printing|woodblock prints]] were a major form of the genre.{{sfn|Fitzhugh|1979|p=27}}  Ukiyo-e art was aimed at the common townspeople at the bottom of the social scale, especially of the administrative capital of [[Edo (Tokyo)|Edo]]. Its audience, themes, aesthetics, and mass-produced nature kept it from consideration as serious art.{{sfn|Kobayashi|1982|pp=67–68}}

In the mid-eighteenth century, full-colour ''{{Transliteration|ja|nishiki-e}}'' prints became common. They were printed by using a large number of woodblocks, one for each colour.{{sfn|Kobayashi|1997|pp=80–83}} Towards the close of the eighteenth century there was a peak in both quality and quantity of the work.{{sfn|Kobayashi|1997|p=91}} [[Torii Kiyonaga|Kiyonaga]] was the pre-eminent portraitist of beauties during the 1780s, and the tall, graceful beauties in his work had a great influence on Utamaro, who was to succeed him in fame.{{sfn|Lane|1962|p=220}} [[Katsukawa Shunshō|Shunshō]] of the [[Katsukawa school]] introduced the ''{{Transliteration|ja|ōkubi-e}}'' "large-headed picture" in the 1760s.{{sfn|Kondō|1956|p=14}} He and other members of the [[Katsukawa school]], such as [[Katsukawa Shunkō I|Shunkō]], popularized the form for ''{{Transliteration|ja|[[yakusha-e]]}}'' actor prints, and popularized the dusting of [[mica]] in the backgrounds to produce a glittering effect.{{sfn|Gotō|1975|p=81}}