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How did Tokugawa peace and growing cities encourage the development of ukiyo-e prints?

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The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai shows a towering blue wave threatening boats, with Mount Fuji visible in the background. — Japanese art *The Breaking Wave off Kanagawa*, woodblock colour print by Hokusai, from the series *Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji*, 1826–33.

The development of ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) was fundamentally driven by the social and economic shifts of the Tokugawa period. The era’s long-standing peace allowed for a rapidly expanding commercial economy and the massive growth of urban centers, particularly Edo, Osaka, and Kyoto.12

This urbanization created a new, prosperous merchant class that, while socially ranked low, possessed the wealth to pursue leisure and entertainment. In a society governed by rigid hierarchies, the licensed pleasure quarters and the Kabuki theatre served as egalitarian "safety valves" for these townsmen. Ukiyo-e emerged to document and celebrate these fleeting, buoyant pleasures of urban life, shifting the focus of visual arts away from the traditional patronage of the nobility and political elite.134

As literacy increased and demand for these images grew, the relatively inexpensive wood-block print format became the ideal medium for mass production. New schools and techniques, such as the multicolour printing developed by Suzuki Harunobu, evolved to meet the rising consumer expectations of this vibrant urban culture.421