Japanese drawings

In the course of the 17th century japanese drawing released itself from the Chinese inspiration which had dominated it in earlier periods. It developed into a independent medium with many exquisite examples by artists such as Utamaro, Hokusai, Buncho and Itcho.
Japanese drawings range from prepatory drawings for woodblock prints and sketches to paintings of various dimensions on pieces of paper, silk or cardboard (tanzaku and shikishi). Some drawings were done for practise purposes and others to be mounted on sliding doors (fusuma), screens (byobu) or scrolls (kakemono or kakejigu).
Fan paintings form a special group. They were intended to be mounted on the bambooframe of a fan. They have a distincive shape and size. In some cases they were later mounted on sceens or sliding doors.
Sometimes japanese drawings were collected in special collectors albums (shuga-jo).