Paintings with the daily activities and special pleasures of contemporary life as their subject matter. Equivalent to the Western term genre painting, as it is applied, for example, to certain Dutch paintings of the 17th century. Representations of everyday life appeared in *yamato-e やまと絵, as early as the Heian period and went on to become a pronounced feature of narrative illustrated handscrolls *emaki 絵巻 of subsequent periods. However, it was not until the late 16th century that the literary and seasonal themes which had dominated earlier painting gave way to a new focus on the portrayal of scenes from contemporary life. True fūzokuga, often termed *kinsei shoki fūzokuga 近世初期風俗画, or genre painting of the early modern period, was a phenomenon confined to little more than a century of Japanese painting history. By the end of the 17th century, it had already been succeeded by the popular *ukiyo-e 浮世絵 form. Among the first Momoyama period works to focus on the life of contemporary people are the folding screens *byōbu 屏風, of "Scenes In and Around the Capital" *Rakuchū rakugai zu 洛中洛外図 (Uesugi 上杉 version; ca. 1574) by Kano Eitoku 狩野永徳 (1543-90). Although a seasonal element is still present in Eitoku's screens, their detailed description of the countless everyday activities of ordinary people in the capital bring these paintings firmly into the realm of pure genre painting. After this initial development, fūzokuga appears to have undergone three distinct stages. Until about 1620, they were produced primarily by artists of the Kano school, *Kano-ha 狩野派, at the request of patrons from Kyoto's aristocratic and warrior families. Mostly large scale works, folding and sliding screens *byōbu-e 屏風絵 and *fusuma-e 襖絵, their subject matter typically consists of lively scenes of picnicking or dancing in outdoor settings, festivals, sporting events, or commemorative scenes of famous battles. Works from this phase include Kano Naganobu's 狩野長信 (1577-1654) "Merrymaking under Blossoming Trees" Kaka yūraku zu 花下遊楽図 (Tokyo National Museum), Kaihō Yūsetsu's 海北友雪 (1598-1677) "Gion Festival" Gion sairei zu 祇園祭礼図 (Hachimanyama Hozonkai 八幡山保存会, Kyoto), the anonymous "Pictures of Horse Training" *Chōba-zu 調馬図 (Daigoji 醍醐寺, Kyoto) and "Hogen Heiji Battle" Hogen Heiji kassen zu 保元平治合戦図 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Compositions involving masses of people dispersed among scattered clouds of gold foil reached a new level of sophistication during this period. Around 1620, patronage for fūzokuga shifted away from the aristocratic and warrior classes and Kano school painters to members of the moneyed merchant class, who commissioned smaller scale works from town painters *machi-eshi 町絵師. Works from this second, most characteristic phase of fūzokuga range from representations of the myriad entertainments available to townspeople on the banks of the Kamo 賀茂 River in Kyoto, as seen in "The Scenes of Shijōgawara" *Shijōgawara-zu 四条河原図 (Seikadō Bunko 静嘉堂文庫 Art Museum, Tokyo), to scenes of men dallying in the pleasure quarters of that city, such as the Hikone byōbu 彦根屏風 (Ii 井伊 Collection, Shiga Prefecture), and decorative assemblages of beautiful women or their garments alone, as seen in paintings on the *tagasode 誰が袖 theme. By the 1660's, the multi-figured compositions of earlier fūzokuga screens had given way to hanging scrolls *kakemono 掛物, featuring a single, standing beauty, for example. These so-called *kanbun bijin 寛文美人, or beauties of the Kanbun era (1661-72), are the thematic precursors of the depictions of beauties which will become popular in ukiyo-e. As late fūzokuga became increasingly stereotyped toward the end of the 17th century, the audience shifted to Edo, the new seat of popular culture, and turned its interest to the more innovative art of early ukiyo-e. In addition to their considerable artistic interest, fūzokuga form a valuable source of information about the contemporary manners and customs during the late 16th and 17th century, an important transitional period in Japanese history.