Typical subjects were female beauties ("'bijin-ga'"), kabuki actors ("'yakusha-e'"), and landscapes.
 The women depicted were most often courtesans and geisha at leisure, and promoted the entertainments to be found in the pleasure districts.
 The detail with which artists depicted courtesans' fashions and hairstyles allows the prints to be dated with some reliability.
 Less attention was given to accuracy of the women's physical features, which followed the day's pictorial fashions—the faces stereotyped, the bodies tall and lanky in one generation and petite in another.
 Portraits of celebrities were much in demand, in particular those from the kabuki and sumo worlds, two of the most popular entertainments of the era.
 While the landscape has come to define ukiyo-e for many Westerners, landscapes flourished relatively late in the ukiyo-e's history.

Ukiyo-e prints grew out of book illustration—many of Moronobu's earliest single-page prints were originally pages from books he had illustrated.
 E-hon books of illustrations were popular and continued be an important outlet for ukiyo-e artists.
In the late period, Hokusai produced the three-volume One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji and the fifteen-volume Hokusai Manga, the latter a compendium of over 4000 sketches of a wide variety of realistic and fantastic subjects.

Traditional Japanese religions do not consider sex or pornography a moral corruption in the Judaeo-Christian sense, and until the changing morals of the Meiji era led to its suppression, shunga erotic prints were a major genre.
 While the Tokugawa regime subjected Japan to strict censorship laws, pornography was not considered an important offence and generally met with the censors' approval.
 Many of these prints displayed a high level a draughtsmanship, and often humour, in their explicit depictions of bedroom scenes, voyeurs, and oversized anatomy.
 As with depictions of courtesans, these images were closely tied to entertainments of the pleasure quarters.
 Nearly every ukiyo-e master produced shunga at some point.
 Records of societal acceptance of shunga are absent, though Timon Screech posits that there were almost certainly some concerns over the matter, and that its level of acceptability has been exaggerated by later collectors, especially in the West.

Scenes from nature have been an important part of Asian art throughout history.
 Artists have closely studied the correct forms and anatomy of plants and animals, even though depictions of human anatomy remained more fanciful until modern times.
 Ukiyo-e nature prints are called kachō-e, which translates as "flower-and-bird pictures", though the genre was open to more than just flowers or birds, and the flowers and birds did not necessarily appear together.
 Hokusai's detailed, precise nature prints are credited with establishing kachō-e as a genre.

The Tenpō Reforms of the 1840s suppressed the depiction of actors and courtesans.
 Aside from landscapes and kachō-e, artists turned to depictions of historical scenes, such as of ancient warriors or of scenes from legend, literature, and religion.
 The 11th-century Tale of Genji and the 13th-century Tale of the Heike have been sources of artistic inspiration throughout Japanese history, including in ukiyo-e.
 Well-known warriors and swordsmen such as Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) were frequent subjects, as were depictions of monsters, the supernatural, and heroes of Japanese and Chinese mythology.

From the 17th to 19th centuries Japan isolated itself from the rest of the world.
 Trade, primarily with the Dutch and Chinese, was restricted to the island of Dejima near Nagasaki.
 Outlandish pictures called Nagasaki-e were sold to tourists of the foreigners and their wares.
 In the mid-19th century, Yokohama became the primary foreign settlement after 1859, from which Western knowledge proliferated in Japan.
 Especially from 1858 to 1862 Yokohama-e prints documented, with various levels of fact and fancy, the growing community of world denizens with whom the Japanese were now coming in contact; triptychs of scenes of
Typical subjects were female beauties ("'bijin-ga'"), kabuki actors ("'yakusha-e'"), and landscapes.  The women depicted were most often courtesans and geisha at leisure, and promoted the entertainments to be found in the pleasure districts.  The detail with which artists depicted courtesans' fashions and hairstyles allows the prints to be dated with some reliability.  Less attention was given to accuracy of the women's physical features, which followed the day's pictorial fashions—the faces stereotyped, the bodies tall and lanky in one generation and petite in another.  Portraits of celebrities were much in demand, in particular those from the kabuki and sumo worlds, two of the most popular entertainments of the era.  While the landscape has come to define ukiyo-e for many Westerners, landscapes flourished relatively late in the ukiyo-e's history.
Ukiyo-e prints grew out of book illustration—many of Moronobu's earliest single-page prints were originally pages from books he had illustrated.  E-hon books of illustrations were popular and continued be an important outlet for ukiyo-e artists. In the late period, Hokusai produced the three-volume One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji and the fifteen-volume Hokusai Manga, the latter a compendium of over 4000 sketches of a wide variety of realistic and fantastic subjects.
Traditional Japanese religions do not consider sex or pornography a moral corruption in the Judaeo-Christian sense, and until the changing morals of the Meiji era led to its suppression, shunga erotic prints were a major genre.  While the Tokugawa regime subjected Japan to strict censorship laws, pornography was not considered an important offence and generally met with the censors' approval.  Many of these prints displayed a high level a draughtsmanship, and often humour, in their explicit depictions of bedroom scenes, voyeurs, and oversized anatomy.  As with depictions of courtesans, these images were closely tied to entertainments of the pleasure quarters.  Nearly every ukiyo-e master produced shunga at some point.  Records of societal acceptance of shunga are absent, though Timon Screech posits that there were almost certainly some concerns over the matter, and that its level of acceptability has been exaggerated by later collectors, especially in the West.
Scenes from nature have been an important part of Asian art throughout history.  Artists have closely studied the correct forms and anatomy of plants and animals, even though depictions of human anatomy remained more fanciful until modern times.  Ukiyo-e nature prints are called kachō-e, which translates as "flower-and-bird pictures", though the genre was open to more than just flowers or birds, and the flowers and birds did not necessarily appear together.  Hokusai's detailed, precise nature prints are credited with establishing kachō-e as a genre.
The Tenpō Reforms of the 1840s suppressed the depiction of actors and courtesans.  Aside from landscapes and kachō-e, artists turned to depictions of historical scenes, such as of ancient warriors or of scenes from legend, literature, and religion.  The 11th-century Tale of Genji and the 13th-century Tale of the Heike have been sources of artistic inspiration throughout Japanese history, including in ukiyo-e.  Well-known warriors and swordsmen such as Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) were frequent subjects, as were depictions of monsters, the supernatural, and heroes of Japanese and Chinese mythology.
From the 17th to 19th centuries Japan isolated itself from the rest of the world.  Trade, primarily with the Dutch and Chinese, was restricted to the island of Dejima near Nagasaki.  Outlandish pictures called Nagasaki-e were sold to tourists of the foreigners and their wares.  In the mid-19th century, Yokohama became the primary foreign settlement after 1859, from which Western knowledge proliferated in Japan.  Especially from 1858 to 1862 Yokohama-e prints documented, with various levels of fact and fancy, the growing community of world denizens with whom the Japanese were now coming in contact; triptychs of scenes of
Ukiyo-e