Early modern Japan witnessed an explosion of visual culture—a diversity of artists, patrons, and expressions that continue to confound the modern art historian’s penchant for tidy classification. This class will offer an in-depth exploration of painting and prints from Japan’s Edo period (1603–1868), so named after the flourishing capital city, the largest and most populous metropolis of the early modern era.  Topics to be covered include the making of a painting or print, artist lineages as construed then and now, the impact of foreign visual cultures such as those from China and Europe, and the relationship between representations and the world ostensibly portrayed. Students will be encouraged to consider what the varying images and texts to be introduced throughout the course can potentially reveal about early modern Japan.