This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

Colors in the water Main Menu

Blue

15622

This color is often representative of the waters that surround Japan and are integral to its quotidian livelihood, but blue is also a generally popular color as it was readily available thanks to the booming indigo dyeing industry.

Contents of this annotation:

Edo period uchikake Edo period uchikake (outer robe). 19th century. Gifted to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1924. This robe is to be worn on the outside of other garments, in order to display to best advantage the gold embroidery on the white, green, and deep blue silk representing the sights of the city of Kyoto. The watery motif of the deep blue ground inspires a stillness of presence and is directly evocative of the cool waters surrounding Japan. White picks out sacred torii gates, whereas the green hills of Japan may be easily distinguished.
The Pearl Divers at Ise, from the series Views of Famous Products of the Land and Sea Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861), 1830s. Color woodblock print on paper. Smith College Museum of Art. When Prussian blue was introduced to Japan in the 18th century, it prompted the creation of a new genre of woodblock print within the ukiyo-e paradigm, termed aizuri ('blue-printed picture') and composed of an almost entirely blue color scheme, as here and in Katsushika Hokusai's famed Great Wave off Kanagawa.
Iwakura-Yama bowl