Page 396 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

cat. 279 395
Utagawa Kuniyoshi,
A Young Person Who Looks Old,
c. 1847-1848,
color woodblock print,
approx. 38 x 26 (15 x 10 V 4),
Private Collection, Hyógo

modes of portraying human beings at work and at play, relying not on purely naturalistic representations,
but rather on more subtle symbolic methods. "Art is something which lies in the slender margin between
the real and the unreal," Chikamatsu instructs us, "while bearing resemblance to the original, it should
have stylization; this makes it art, and is what delights men's minds." The reader of this volume is simi-
larly encouraged to take delight in the ways that Edo artists balanced reality and stylization to capture
images of the men and women who passed their lives in the floating world.