This is the first series of books to gather together the full panorama of ukiyo-e-'picures of the floating world'-form its inception in early genre paintings to the versatile genius of such masters as Hiroshige. Each book will examine a specific master, style or medium and will have sixty-four pages of full-color reproductions, many available outside Japan for the first time. Masterworks of Ukiyo-e will provide collectors and scholars with excellent quick reference sources, and readers with no previous knowledge of Japanese art with an unusually fine and specific introduct into its appreciation-at a remarkably low popular price. Sharaku, one of the greatest figures in the history of Japanese art, is certainly the most mysterious. So little is known of his life, that other than his more than 150 prints and paintings, there is little evidence that he did, in fact, exist. His style is so unique among the art of his contemporaries that, although every other aspect of the Sharaku myth is suspect, the works themselves are unquestionable proof of his reality. Contents Translator's preface Sharaku Notes to the plates The plates