A Wealth of Eastern Inspiration

Society and people magazine Open Culture has reported on a wonderful site created by enthusiasts of Japanese Woodblock Printing. This fascinating art form has traditions that extend back for centuries, and in particular, the branch known as ukiyo e has reached levels of international interest.


The site is available for researchers who speak English or Japanese, and contains around a quarter of a million images of unique and catalogue art works. The researchers who built the site are experienced in the field and have travelled to museums, archives, libraries, and institutions all around the world to collate and create this resource. With the internet allowing anyone to access the collection, the site can rightfully boast millions of views.


This is an important resource for artists, designers, historians, and people who want to learn more about the Japanese culture. The images of course depict Japanese people and scenes in varying detail, and are represented in traditional ways. The fascinating script written in Japanese on the art works give a further sense of the culture.


Khan Academy engineer and programmer John Resig has created the resource to reconcile the movement of this art form. The scholarly implications of this encyclopaedia of images are vast, and not just in their given specialism. People can draw on the ideas represented for all kinds of creative and non creative projects. This generous and painstaking effort to obtain and list all these images truly deserves our respect and some time to browse, and absorb something a bit different.

​Take a look at ukiyo-e.org