Nikuhitsuga

• Japanese: 肉筆画 (nikuhitsuga)

Nikuhitsuga were a form of Japanese painting in the ukiyo-e art style. Though the woodblock prints of this genre have become so famous in the West as to become almost synonymous with the term "ukiyo-e", in fact most ukiyo-e artists were painters as well as printmakers, with much the same style and subjects. Some turned to painting at the end of a career in prints, while some, like Miyagawa Chôshun and a number of the artists of the Kaigetsudô school, never made prints and only worked in paintings.

Though advances in printing technology advanced over the course of the Edo period (1603-1868), allowing for the production of more and more elaborate and colorful prints, the medium of painting always allowed a greater degree of freedom to the artist, and involved a much larger product in any case; the paintings of many ukiyo-e artists survive today and are exquisite in their bright colors, attention to detail, and bold brush strokes.

References

• This article was written by User:LordAmeth and contributed to both S-A and Wikipedia; the author gives permission for his work to be used in this way.
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