Megane-e

In Japanese art, a megane-e (眼鏡絵, 'optique picture') is a print designed using graphical perspective techniques and viewed through a convex lens to produce a three-dimensional effect.[1] The term derives from the French vue d'optique. The device used to view them was called an Oranda megane (和蘭眼鏡, 'Dutch glasses') or nozoki megane (覗き眼鏡, 'peeping glasses'),[2] and the pictures were also known as karakuri-e (繰絵, 'tricky picture').

Some young women using a megane-e device
Harunobu, c. 1760s

Perspective boxes first appeared in Renaissance Europe and were popular until superseded by the stereoscope in the mid-19th century.[3] The Dutch brought the first such device to Japan in the 1640s as a gift to the shōgun. The devices became popular in Japan only after the Chinese popularized them in Japan[4] about 1758,[5] after which they began to influence Japanese artists.[4]

The artist Maruyama Ōkyo (1733–95) made serious study of imported perspective techniques and applied them to his painting. He gained an interest in making ukiyo-e prints through the ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Toyoharu, who produced uki-e 'floating pictures' using linear perspective techniques. Ōkyo began making uki-e prints for viewing through a convex lens: megane-e.[5] Ōkyo later dismissed his megane-e, perhaps because their subjects were of kabuki and the pleasure quarters and thus considered of low artistic value.[6] Prints by artists such as Utamaro and Masanobu depict people enjoying megane-e.[7]