Arts of Japan

• Japanese art encompasses various styles and media, such as ancient pottery, sculpture, ink painting, calligraphy, ukiyo-e paintings, woodblock prints, kiri-e, kirigami, origami, and manga (modern Japanese cartooning and comics).
• Ukiyo-e is characterized by a well-defined, bold, flat line.
• The arrangement of forms in flat spaces is a characteristic of Ukiyo-e.
• Compositions in Ukiyo-e were often asymmetrical.
• Elements of images in Ukiyo-e were often cropped.
• The aesthetic of flat areas of color contrasted with the modulated colors is a characteristic of Ukiyo-e.
• Sumizuri-e, or monochrome printing using only black ink, is a style of Ukiyo-e.
• Benizuri-e, which adds red ink details or highlights by hand after the printing process, is a style of Ukiyo-e.
• Tan-e, which uses orange highlights made with red pigment called tan, is a style of Ukiyo-e.
• Aizuri-e, or pictures of the floating world, is a style of Ukiyo-e.
• Murasaki-e, or purple pictures, is a style in which a single color, usually purple, was used in addition to, or instead of, black ink.
• Urushi-e is a method that thickens the ink with glue, emboldening the image, and is a style of Ukiyo-e.
• Nishiki-e is a method of using multiple blocks for separate portions of the image, using a number of colors to achieve complex and detailed images, and is a style of Ukiyo-e.
• Artists painted with pigments made from minerals, organic substances, and synthetic dyes.
• Artists painted on silk or paper scrolls (kakemono), handscrolls (makimono) or folding screens (byobu).
• The goal of origami (paper folding) is to transform a sheet of paper into a finished sculpture through folding and sculpting techniques.
• Traditional origami paper called Washi is used because it is stronger than ordinary paper.
• Action Origami includes origami that flies, requires inflation to complete, or when complete, uses the kinetic energy of a person’s hands.
• Modular Origami consists of putting a number of identical pieces together to form a complete model.
• Wet folding is a technique for producing models with gentle curves rather than geometric straight folds and flat surfaces.
• Kirigami involves the paper being cut as well as being folded, resulting in a three-dimensional design that stands away from the page.
• Noshi is a kind of ceremonial origami attached to gifts to express the sender’s good wishes.
• Kumadori is a makeup tradition in Japan that includes the most sophisticated face painting in the world.
• Kumadori helps actors to become living special effects that help present the story.
• Noh masks are carved from blocks of Japanese cypress and painted with natural pigments on a neutral base of glue and crunched seashells.
• Manga refers to all cartooning, comics, and animation.
• Comics produced outside Japan are called ani-manga.
• The differences between Manga and Anime are color, movement, and sound.