Lit. "floating picture." Usually a woodblock print, in which the three-dimensionality of a scene is emphasized by using one point perspective. The term "floating picture" may refer to the raised or floating appearance of the foreground in these pictures. Also sometimes referred to as kubomi-e 窪み絵 (hollow concave picture), because of the impression of recession in space. The knowledge of perspective necessary for three-dimensional depictions was probably gained through Chinese translations of European books on perspective; one such book is known to have arrived in Japan by 1739.
Okumura Masanobu 奥村政信 (1686-1764) claimed in the margins of his uki-e prints to be the originator ganso 元祖 of this type of print. Early prints from the mid 1740's by Masanobu and others such as Nishimura Shigenaga 西村重長 (?-1756) usually depict the interior of buildings such as *kabuki 歌舞伎 theaters. Members of the Torii school *Torii-ha 鳥居派, which was closely associated with the kabuki world, are also known for uki-e, particularly of theater interiors.
A second vogue for perspective pictures began with the increased import of the karakuri 絡繰 apparatus around 1750: these were convex lenses through which to view a certain kind of perspective picture imported mainly from the Netherlands. These prints are now generally referred to as *megane-e 眼鏡絵, which are considered by some to be a category of uki-e. In the Edo period, however, no distinction was made between pictures using the nozoki karakuri 覗絡繰 apparatus and those which did not. For a further discussion of this apparatus, and later perspective prints, see megane-e.