Page "Japanese art" Paragraph 4

Painting is the preferred artistic expression in Japan, practiced by amateurs and professionals alike.

Until modern times, the Japanese wrote with a brush rather than a pen, and their familiarity with brush techniques has made them particularly sensitive to the values and aesthetics of painting.

With the rise of popular culture in the Edo period, a style of woodblock prints called ukiyo-e became a major art form and its techniques were fine tuned to produce colorful prints of everything from daily news to schoolbooks.

The Japanese, in this period, found sculpture a much less sympathetic medium for artistic expression ; most Japanese sculpture is associated with religion, and the medium's use declined with the lessening importance of traditional Buddhism.