Cats in Ukiyo-e; An Overview of the SOGO Museum of Art Exhibition
- ellieisadragon
- Sep 4
- 10 min read
Ukiyo-e is easily the most widely recognised part of Japanese art history; even if you aren't familiar with the name, you will be familiar with at least one example. You can't go far without seeing Hokusai's "The Great Wave off the Coast of Kanagawa" pasted on a t-shirt or tote bag after all, and it doesn't take an art expert to recognise it.
Please note: I do not use genAI in any part of my life, and certainly not in my art or writing. This was written from my normal, human brain, with research done from various sources but primarily from the site itself.
Contents
An introduction to Ukiyo-e
How is Ukiyo-e made?
About the SOGO Museum of Art
Cats of Ukiyo-e
Section one; Shapes of Cats
Section two; Living with Cats
Section three; The Transformation of Cats
Section four; Omocha-e
More in the area!
An introduction to Ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e (directly translating as 'floating world paintings') are woodblock prints which were commonly produced in the late 17th century to the early 20th. They were an early of mass produced art, which has it's pros and cons. On the one hand, it allowed people of lower status to access and enjoy art, and made it's enjoyment significantly more accessible. On the other hand, it was a prime example of the trend which continues to this day, which meant artists had to create what was predicted to be popular, and focus was moved from artistic expression and personal meaning to "make what sells". It is one of the earliest examples of mass consumerism impacting the production of art, and as a result, many topics and themes were repeated over and over again. That's why this exhibition was able to display so many artworks focused around cats! As is the case in the modern day, cats are an everlasting popular topic.
Ukiyo-e went through many changes over the years. In it's early years, in the mid-late 1600s, sumizuri-e were produced, which were only in black and white. Following, Tan-e and Beni-e, black and white prints which were then hand painted, took up popularity until the mid 1700s, when Benizuri-e was developed, allowing 2-4 colours to be printed without the need for labour-intensive hand painting. Finally, in 1765, Suzuki Harunobu found a method which would make prints with more than 10 colours possible, and creation of Nishiki-e, the polychrome print, began.
How is Ukiyo-e made?
Unlike most art from the time, Ukiyo-e involved a whole team, rather than just the artist and commissioner. Initially, a publisher would commission a drawing, which would be created by an artist, carved into the woodblock by a carver, and then printers apply the paint and print the images, with the artist overseeing each stage and checking drafts.
After the artist creates the master drawing, the drawing was pasted onto a block of wood, often that of a cherry tree, using rice paste. The drawing was then rubbed against the block, making the lines visible on the block itself as a guide for the carver. The first block to be carved created the outlines of the piece, and is called the key block. Once the key block has been created, it is used to make the proof prints. Black ink is applied to the block using a brush, which is then covered with a thick sheet of washi paper. The back of the paper is thoroughly rubbed with a baren to move the ink onto the paper. This process is repeated a number of times equivalent to the number of colours planned to be in the final print, and these proof prints are sent back to the artist.
The artist then uses these proof prints to indicate where the colour separations are. Each copy represents one colour in the planned artwork, but the artist themselves uses only one colour (typically vermillion) to indicate where each colour goes. To use the Great Wave as an example, one copy would be used to indicate where the light brown of the boats would go, another would be used for the dark brown where they are shaded, and so on.
When these colour indications are complete, they are sent back to the carver, who creates another block for each of the colours. It must have been very labour intensive work initially, but creating these blocks allowed for many copies of the artwork to be more easily created.
Finally, when all of these blocks are complete, the printing can begin! The key block is laid down first, providing the outlines of the image, and then each following block is used with it's respective colour to create the next layer, until the image is complete! The colours in ukiyo-e are incredibly vibrant, as the pigment is pressed deep within the fibres of the washi, rather than just painted on the surface, as is the case with most painting techniques.
About the SOGO museum of art
You wouldn't expect it when in the gallery itself, but the SOGO museum of art is just a department store museum, with an exhibit that changes once every few months. From outside the exhibit, I expected there to be only a very small collection of artwork with not much to it, so I spent far too long in the first room... there was actually a lot of space, and they filled it with a huge quantity of cat-based Ukiyo-e of varying themes and connections/attitudes towards cats. While many paintings in the first section showed cats as protectors and guardians, the third section had them portrayed as untrustworthy yokai.
Although photos are not permitted in the exhibit, and most signs are only in Japanese, if you inform staff at the entrance that you intend to use translation apps, they will give you a lanyard so security does not disturb you. I felt very official with my lanyard on!
Although this particular exhibit will have already closed by the time I have finished writing, the next will be celebrating the 70th anniversary of the popular children's character Miffy. They have a lot of variety in their exhibitions!
To take a look at what's on now, their website is linked below:
Cats of Ukiyo-e
Records of cats as the friends and partners of Japanese people go as far back as the Heian period, with the Tale of Genji portraying a beloved cat in the imperial palace. When Ukiyo-e was developed and the topics of artwork became more focused on what the public was expected to be interested in, artwork involving and revolving around cats became frequent. The many, many paintings including cats gives an insight to their place in peoples lives in the late edo and early meiji period, and spoiler alert, their places in a household have not changed all that much!
As I name paintings in this article, you will see where the stereotypical anime with ridiculously long names has it's roots... a lot of these names, especially translated, are a little ridiculous, so bare with me!
Fun fact! It is speculated that "Neko", the Japanese word for cat, originated from the phrase "Neru ko", meaning sleeping child, as cats always have slept, and always will sleep, for the vast majority of the day.
Section one; The Shapes of Cats
This first part to the exhibition was just an introduction to the world of cats in Ukiyo-e, but it contained some of my favourite paintings. Most of the paintings in this room were focused entirely on the cats themselves, rather than having a separate theme, so it included some of the most detailed and expressive cats. One of my personal favourites was "トマトと猫” (Tomato and cat) by Takahashi Hiroaki...This was the most expressive cats I saw in the exhibition, with it's ears forward in curiosity towards something behind a tomato plant!
A few paintings in this section regarded cats as guardians. Cats were often considered guardians of sericulture, as they would catch the mice that threatened the silkworms. Because of this I've seen a few Ukiyo-e works of them watching over silkmoths. Similarly, for less obvious reasons, they were considered guardians against fire! One black and white piece on display was called "火防鼠除 新田猫" (Fire Prevention Rat Removal New Field Cat) by an unknown artist, which was supposedly commissioned to ward off fire in their household. Another painting of a cat having knocked over a lantern did speculate that cats were domesticated so early in history because they were unafraid of the fire humans used, which may be why they're considered to ward off fire... although that is ironic, given the cat in this painting could have easily caused a fire!
The painting with the most space dedicated to it in this section, and in fact in the entire exhibition itself was Utagawa Kuniyoshi's "其まま地口猫飼好五十三疋", or the 53 cats of Tokaido road. This is one of many examples of me wishing my Japanese was better so that I could get a better understanding, but puns and humour are the hardest thing to get a grasp on when learning a new language, and this painting was pretty much one big pun. Kuniyoshi took the name of each post office along the Tokaido road and made a play on words, changing their names to the behaviour of a cat.
Fun fact! Utagawa Kuniyoshi was known for his love of cats, and included many in his work. When a cat died, he would hold a funeral for it at Ekoin temple.
Section two; Living with Cats
The second part of the exhibition showed paintings of cats as part of peoples daily life, doing things that actually translated quite well to the behaviour of cats today. With Ukiyo-e being strongly tied to consumerism, and artists and publishers therefore focusing on what they predicted would be popular, cats were often painted alongside beautiful women, as that's what the men wanted to see. In addition, a housewife and her cat were often seen to be close partners, spending their days in the house together. A combination of these factors meant that the majority of the paintings in this section showed women and their cats. There were maybe three out of 40 that showed men with cats!
So many of the behaviours of cats and interactions between cats and their owners were things you would also see in the modern day... one painting showed a cat climbing into it's owners kimono to hide from the winter cold, another showed a cat scrounging for a fish from it's owners plate, snaking between her legs as she walked. One behaviour I was surprised to see was a woman holding a cat up on it's hind legs to dance with it. I would have thought of this as such modern behaviour!
Something else I was surprised to see was a foreign name in the artist credits. Paul Binnie, a Scottish artist studying ukiyo-e, had his work displayed in this section! Specifically, this exhibit showed a piece from his "A Hundred Shades of Ink of Edo" collection, "Kuniyoshi's cats". It depicted a man with many tattoos, some of which of cats, sat beside a cat. Apparently, his Hundred Shades of Ink of Edo collection included 10 works, each featuring nude models with elaborate tattoos. Honestly, I was very happy to see that they included the work of a foreigner; I did not expect that in the slightest.
Section three; The Transformation of Cats
Have you ever noticed how quickly a cats eyes widen? There is an expression in Japanese, "猫の目のよう", which translates to "Like a cats eye", and refers to something very frequent and quick to change. This is derived from a cats ability to dilate and contract their pupils especially quickly. Between this and the way their eyes reflect light in the dark, cats in Japanese history developed an image of being supernatural creatures, and were often viewed with suspicion. Many believed their knowledge far surpassed those of humans. As a result, many Ukiyo-e, as well as other arts from the time, involved "Bakeneko", or ghost cats, and other cat-based Yokai.
The exhibit showed a great many paintings focused on cat-based Yokai. Yokai are supernatural creatures conceptualised to explain the, at the time, unexplainable, and they were another common theme in Ukiyo-e. Many cat-based yokai exist, given cats untrustworthy image of the time, such as the bakeneko, which can disguise themselves as normal housecats or even humans, and are able to speak many human languages. They are depicted in another of Kuniyoshi's works, "猫の百面相", or "The 100 faces of cats", in which they are dressed in human clothing with various expressions.
Kuniyoshi's love of cats did not cause him to shy away from portraying them as nefarious creatures, untrustworthy, changeable, or strange. Multiple of his works showed them contorted into different shapes, such as lying in the shape of letters, forming words, or many being stacked together to create the shape of one large creature.
Section four; Omocha-e
The final section was the newest to me, as I'd never heard the word Omocha-e before. According to this event, Omocha-e, translated as "Toy Prints" is a type of Ukiyo-e that is, as the name suggest, used for childrens items, such as Sugoroku (a Japanese boardgame,), dress up dolls, and paper assembly kits. Additionally, they were often used for educational purposes, to teach children about life, which now gives us a good insight to life as it was in the early meiji period! However, since they were used as toys, rather than being considered art, they were used and discarded, leaving few surviving examples in the modern day, and frequently damaged at that.
Because these prints were made for children, the depictions of cats were a lot friendlier and more innocent than in the illustrations in the previous section. Anthropomorphic cats were often depicted in scenes in place of humans. Many showed anthropomorphic cats involved in and watching various forms of entertainment, such as kabuki, and one piece on display, "猫の玉乗" (Ball riding cats) by an unknown artist, showed cats in a typical circus! The cats rode on circus balls, as the name suggests, and performed with hoops, trapezes and fans.
Some works showed cats fighting in various battles with human weapons; personally, I think it's likely these works were used as history education for children, teaching them about past battles, and likely introducing them to concepts on the battlefield in the most child-friendly way possible. But that's just what I thought.
Finally, there were many, many works showing cats bathing in sentos, or public bathhouses. Sentos have seen a major decline in popularity in recent years, but they are still frequent in Tokyo, and still fairly commonly used. However, the sheer quantity of "cats visiting the sento" pieces that were displayed at the exhibition, made me think that the public bathhouse was definitely a bigger part of life back then.
As there is with museums, the gift shop in the end had a lot to offer! I just thought I would add this as an "honourable mention", despite not being the exhibition itself, because I was happy to find a bilingual book! Unfortunately, it was just a beginners guide to ukiyo-e, rather than the more on topic "cats in ukiyo-e" book they had available in Japanese... I would have bought that, but I didn't feel like buying a book if I would only be able to read one page per day! Kanji is tough...
Overall though, the exhibition was brilliant. I noticed in my research there has been past "cats in ukiyo-e" exhibitions elsewhere, in previous years, so if this sounds like it would be your cup of tea, keep an eye out! I would definitely recommend this exhibition if I hadn't visited it on the second to last day it was available; it was great to see how cats were perceived and depicted throughout history, and to learn more about the techniques used in Ukiyo-e!
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