Hokusai was one of many famous ukiyo-e (woodblock print artists) from his era in Japan, the early nineteenth century. Over time, however, Hokusai's focus on grand landscapes and his immaculate skill, well shown in his series of prints of Mount Fuji, have garnered him more respect than most of his contemporaries. The Great Wave Off Kanagawa is the most famous Japanese woodblock print in the West.

Oiran highlights the cultural foment of the early Meiji period. Created to evoke nostalgia for vanishing elements of Japanese culture, the painting's subject matter of a grand courtesan is typical of traditional Ukiyo-e printmaking. It is unique, however, in that it does not represent the courtesan's features in the idealizing manner of ukiyo-e artists, but rather in the more analytical manner of Western portraiture. 

This work, Kanagawa oki nama ura (Under the Wave off Kanagawa) by Katsushika Hokusai, is a classic of the Japanese woodblock printing tradition. Crafted for replication, Hokusai’s work is from a series known as Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, which showed the iconic Japanese mountain from a variety of perspectives and in different conditions. The sharp lines and highly structured formal representation are characteristic of Japanese art in general and the ukiyo-e style in particular.

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The Burning of the Sanjo Palace is one of the more famous and most representative works of classical Japanese art. This handscroll painting, done about one hundred years after the event it depicts, features swift brushstrokes to emphasize movement, has a strong use of diagonals, and presents largely undifferentiated figures. All of these are classic hallmarks of Japanese handscroll painting from the Kamakura period.

Fan Kuan lived in the Song Dynasty. His only remaining work is Travelers by Streams and Mountains. It is ink on a silk hanging scroll that was almost seven feet tall. This work was part of the Northern Song school of monumental landscapes.

This statue is an image of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and renewal, which obviously shows it was created in a predominantly Hindu area. The close attention to Shiva’s traditional iconography, featuring four arms and placing him in the “Lord of Dance” pose known as “Nataraja,” places its creation in a traditionally Hindu area of India. Indeed, the Chola dynasty in southern India was one of the key centers for the worship of Shiva in 10^th century India.

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Like much Asian art, White and Red Plum Blossoms, by Ogata Kōrin, shown here, is an idealized landscape rendered in simple forms. However, Ogata's extremely representational style and use of gold is a signature of the Rinpa school of Japan, which flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Due to Japan's isolationism in these centuries, artists could develop idiosyncratic styles which were distinct from other related cultural art forms.

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White and Red Plum Blossoms by Ogata Kōrin is a large paper screen, made out of fine ink and gold leaf. The high quality materials used by Ogata for a screen make it a display item that could also be a functional element in a household. The screens created by Japanese artists in the Rinpa school, such as Ogata, were often one of the features of the homes of the elite and wealthy merchants in Edo Period Japan.

Artwork from Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ogata_Korin_-_RED_AND_WHITE_PLUM_BLOSSOMS_(National_Treasure)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Krishna is seen as the full incarnation of the god Vishnu in many forms of Hinudism, and is therefore an extremely popular subject in Hindu religious art. Krishna is most easily identifiable as having blue skin, which is related to the meaning of his name in Sanskrit, "the dark one."  Krishna has been worshipped as the supreme god since the middle ages in Hindu religious traditions.

This image, "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa" by Hokusai, is one of the iconic and indelible images of Japanes art. Done in the ukiyo-e woodblock printing style, the print is in many copies throughout the world, and in the usual fashion of nineteenth-century Japanese art, it depicts a dramatic force of nature in a landscape. Additionally, its formalism and representational elements are indicative of art from the Edo period (1603-1867).