Emerging from the older painting schools Tosa and Kanō (Buddhist painting schools primarily concerned with the portrayal of religious art depicting gods and saints and portraying royalty), Ukiyo-e first began in about the early 18th century. Early prints were monochrome, though often employed some color added directly by hand. By the 1740s partial color printing would emerge and by 1765 full color prints would predominate. Ukiyo-e would reach the peak of its popularity by the end of the 18th century and continue on into the 19th century in a gradual decline. Originally, the compositions of Ukiyo-e involved the culture of the popular entertainment of the Edo townsfolk but would gradually move on to landscape painting by the 19th century. Ukiyo-e would continue on until the end of the 19th century but would die off in favor of international styles and methods of printmaking became dominant with the end of self-imposed isolationism and the Meiji Restoration.

Within the history of the production of Ukiyo-e is also the efforts to restrict and curb its creation. At its core, Ukiyo-e was involved with the folklore of the urban Chōnin class, though it also functioned as an esoteric and exoteric factor towards shaping group identity in Edo Period Japan. Predominantly merchants, the Chōnin sat at the bottom of the Tokugawa feudal class structure and the Tokugawa government sought to censor and prohibit the subjects in Ukiyo-e as such. Exoterically, the rather racy themes involved in prints worked to act in opposition to the rigid social structure and the governments measures to restrict Ukiyo-e art in response to this, such as through sumptuary laws  restricting the usage of bright colors in prints to restrictions on the printing of the names of the aristocracy of the Edo Period in print (Amsden 2007; Ellis 2019, Sims, Martha, and Martine Stephens 2011, 30-68).