A Peaceful Era and Growing Cities
The Edo period, running from the early seventeenth century to the middle of the nineteenth, was a long stretch of relative peace under the Tokugawa government. Its seat, Edo (now Tokyo), grew into one of the largest cities in the world, while Kyoto and Osaka were also major centers. Osaka in particular was a hub of trade.
Society was officially divided into warrior, farmer, artisan and merchant groups, with warriors at the top and merchants nominally at the bottom. In practice, merchants and craftspeople in the cities often held considerable wealth and became the main buyers and audiences for new forms of entertainment. This group, often called chonin (townspeople), is the subject here. Their taste was different from that of the court and of the warrior class, though the groups influenced one another and overlapped in many places.
Entertainment Districts and the “Floating World”
Cities developed licensed pleasure quarters, theatre districts and busy markets. The term ukiyo, “floating world,” originally carried a sense of the fleeting, uncertain nature of life, and over time it came to describe the urban world of fashion and entertainment. Townspeople who could afford it spent time at the theatre, at teahouses and at seasonal outings such as the hanami custom of viewing cherry blossoms.
It is worth remembering that these quarters were also places of hardship for many of the people who worked in them. The glamorous imagery in prints and fiction was selective, and modern readers should treat it as a stylized picture rather than a record of everyday life.
Woodblock Prints for a Wide Market
Printing with carved wooden blocks was used in Japan for centuries for religious texts, but in the Edo period commercial publishers built a market for illustrated books and single-sheet prints. The ukiyo-e prints of this era showed actors, beautiful women, landscapes, travel scenes and legends. Producing one involved a designer, a block carver, a printer and a publisher, so the result was a team effort, and the publisher usually decided what would sell.
Because prints were made in quantity, they were relatively affordable, and they worked as portraits of celebrities, fashion guides and souvenirs. Landscape series became popular as travel along major roads grew. Mass production did not mean low skill: carving and printing techniques became very refined, including the use of many colors from separate blocks.
Theatre for the Public
Two theatre forms in particular grew up around townspeople audiences. Kabuki theatre developed into a spectacle of dramatic plots, striking costume and star actors, and it was closely tied to fan culture, with prints of actors in demand. Bunraku puppets, operated in full view of the audience with a chanter narrating the story, drew on tales of loyalty, love and conflict, many of them set in the world of merchants and ordinary families as well as in historical settings. Both used the samisen, a three-stringed instrument that became central to popular music, and it remains one of the best-known traditional instruments.
Not all performance was large-scale. Rakugo storytelling grew out of comic tales told by a lone performer sitting on a cushion, and it is still performed.
Literature, Poetry and Fashion
Literacy among urban people was fairly widespread by the standards of the time, and lending libraries and booksellers helped spread popular fiction, guidebooks and humor. Poetry also had a broad base. The short seventeen-syllable form associated with haiku form was practiced by many amateurs, and groups of enthusiasts met to compose verse together.
Fashion was a lively field. Rules from the government at times tried to limit luxury among commoners, and one response was a taste for subtle, understated refinement, with plain outer surfaces and fine patterns or linings. This quiet cleverness is a major part of the iki ideal. Townspeople also helped shape the way kimono and the obi were worn and decorated, and the history of Japanese fashion shows several trends from this era.
Food, Festivals and Daily Pleasures
Cities supported food stalls, noodle shops and sweet sellers, and eating out became more common than before. Festivals organized by neighborhoods, including those described under matsuri festivals, were a major part of community life, and the yearly cycle of events gave rhythm to the city.
Limits and Controls
The Tokugawa authorities regulated theatre, publishing and luxury at various times, and the contents of prints and books could be censored. Those limits shaped what artists produced; some responded by using coded references or humor. The period also had natural disasters and fires, which were so frequent in Edo that they became part of its image.
What Lasted
The Edo townspeople created a pattern that later eras recognized: arts made for a paying public, produced by teams, supported by publishers and promoters, and tied to celebrity and fashion. When Japanese prints later reached Europe, they were admired by Western artists, part of the wider Japonisme influence of the nineteenth century, and the commercial instincts of this era can still be seen in modern popular media. Even so, it is better to see the Edo townspeople as one important contributor among many than as the single source of “Japanese popular culture.”