在日本近代早期，和平与繁荣使精英和大众艺术文化在江户（东京）和京都蓬勃发展。2012年，在日本以外首次展出的名为《生物的多彩境界》（约1757–66年）的伊藤若冲的三十卷系列促使人们在此背景下重新构想艺术家和艺术创作。这些文章关注了伊藤若冲一系列精美的作品以及一系列当代艺术家的作品。精选的文稿探讨了专业角色的问题，包括复制和模仿，展示和纪念以及制造者的身份。有些文章探讨了在城市社会（提供主题和受众）背景下浮世绘这种新的绘画形式。其文章则讨论了业余和专业的江户陶器的种类以及绘画与其他媒介之间的相互关系。这些文章共同揭示了在该国历史上具有重要意义的时代，艺术家身份的流动性和活力。

During the early modern period in Japan, peace and prosperity allowed elite and popular arts and culture to flourish in Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto. The historic first showing outside Japan of Itō Jakuchū's thirty-scroll series titled Colorful Realm of Living Beings (ca. 1757–66) in 2012 prompted a reimagining of artists and art making in this context. These essays give attention to Jakuchū’s spectacular series as well as to works by a range of contemporary artists. Selected contributions address issues of professional roles, including copying and imitation, display and memorialization, and makers’ identities. Some explore the new form of painting, ukiyo-e, in the context of the urban society that provided its subject matter and audiences; others discuss the spectrum of amateur and professional Edo pottery and interrelationships between painting and other media. Together, they reveal the fluidity and dynamism of artists’ identities during a time of great significance in the country’s history.