Japanese Prints

In the middle of nineteenth century the commercial opening of Japan to the West became an important factor to our Modernism. Santiago Rusiñol was a collector of Japanese prints.

The collection of Japanese prints of the Museum of Montserrat comes from the donation of Catalan bookseller Just Cabot (1898-1961), who lived in Paris. The donation arrived to Montserrat in 1962. It consists of sixteen engravings, eight of which by Hiroshige, the Velázquez of Japanese art. The other eight are of lesser artists but of great interest. They all are part of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the golden age of Japanese prints.

The Ukiyo-e engravings, which means "painting of the floating world", is a school that is proud to represent scenes of everyday life, women known for their beauty or popularity, theater kabuki actors, typical and popular landscapes and yet the social life of the city of Edo that attracted many artists dedicated primarily to praise the good life of rich merchants.

It is rare to find in the West and even less in our land large collections of Japanese prints, so this one of the Abbey of Montserrat is especially interesting.