Japanese woodblock prints from Designmuseum Danmark's collection
In Love
& War
Images of heroic warriors in battle and beautiful young people can be experienced in the exhibition 'In Love and War' at Designmuseum Danmark. The exhibition showcases carefully selected Japanese woodblock prints from the museum's large collection of Japanese craftsmanship.
In Love & War provides a rare glimpse into a period in Japan’s history when the shogun ruled and the country was isolated from the outside world. Here, the audience can experience images of beautiful young men and women from the so-called Edo period (1600-1868), when the Tokugawa shogunate ruled from the capital Edo, today Tokyo – as well as images of samurai and modern graphic war images from the Meiji period (1868-1912), where feudal rule under the shogun was replaced by a constitutional monarchy under Emperor Meiji. The title of the exhibition refers to the proverb “In love and war, all is fair” and alludes to the visual impact of the famous Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, one of the foremost art forms of the Edo period. The distinctive expression in the ukiyo-e idealized the daily life of the prostitutes of that time and served as visual propaganda in the form of war images with nationalist and patriotic undertones.
Woodblock printing was developed in Tang-dynasty China, making its way to Japan by the eighth century. From the mid seventeenth century, Japanese woodblock prints gradually became part of a large-scale printing industry that catered to both commoners and elite classes alike thanks to low production costs; large print runs and an efficient division of labour between publishers, artists, woodcutters, and printers made the printing process increasingly affordable. The woodblock prints were called ukiyo-e, an artistic style employed in various media. Ukiyo, meaning “floating world,” originated from a Buddhist teaching on impermanence, but during the Edo period, it came to signify the pleasure-seeking behaviour of “living for the moment.” For audiences in the Edo and Meiji periods, these mass-produced prints were not considered fine art, but rather seen as entertainment or current affairs. When Japan opened its borders to the world in the mid eighteen hundreds, many prints were exported to the West and collected by artists and institutions, including the Designmuseum Denmark.
The exhibition is curated by art historian and associate professor Asato Ikeda, Fordham University, and art historian and associate professor Gunhild Borggreen from the Department of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen.
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