Foreigners Enjoying Themselves in the Gankirō

Foreigners Enjoying Themselves in the Gankirō

Utagawa Yoshikazu

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

When the port of Yokohama, about thirty miles southwest of Edo, opened to Westerners in 1859, near the end of the Edo period, ukiyo-e artists started illustrating the foreigners in Yokohama and creating imaginary scenes of foreign countries, known as Yokohama-e (Yokohama pictures). As one of the major early printmakers of Yokohama-e, Yoshikazu, a pupil of Kuniyoshi, produced many views of Yokohama. This scene shows the largest pleasure quarter for foreigners, Gankirō, located in the Miyozaki pleasure quarters, which were similar to those in Yoshiwara, in Edo. Foreigners, courtesans, and servants are arranged in a complex interior space with confusing multiple perspectives. In the foreground several foreigners are shown eating, drinking, and singing; one man has stripped to his underwear to dance.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.