International Letter writing week - 2018

A cover from Japan 🇯🇵 with the stamps of International Letter writing week 2018

Date of issue - 9-oct-2018

International Letter Writing Week, spanning the one-week period that includes October 9, was established at the 14th Universal Postal Union Congress held in Ottawa, Ontario, in 1957 with the aim of contributing to world peace by encouraging cultural exchanges among the people of the world through letter writing. 

In Thailand and Japan, International Letter Writing Week is a highly-active event while the UPU focuses more on the International Letter-Writing Competition for Young People (established 1969) and World Post Day. Many countries issue stamps each year marking World Post Day. Japan tends to release an annual set marking International Letter Writing Week.

Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk tales; travel scenes and landscapes; flora and fauna; and erotica. The term ukiyo-e (浮世絵) translates as "picture[s] of the floating world". The term ukiyo ("floating world") came to describe the hedonistic lifestyle of  the merchant class at the bottom of the social order benefited most from Tokyo’s rapid economic growth in early 17th century.

Hokusai and Hiroshige were two great artists who specialises in Ukiyo e paintings. 

Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format landscape series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō and for his vertical-format landscape series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. The subjects of his work were atypical of the ukiyo-e genre, whose typical focus was on beautiful women, popular actors, and other scenes of the urban pleasure districts of Japan's Edo period (1603–1868). 

Japan usually features Hiroshige’s ukiyo e artworks on stamps for the international Letter writing week. 

Thanks Chisako for this beautiful cover ! 

Update : 06-05-2019

Another registered envelope from Japan with stamps on international Letter writing week 2015 

The cover has one of the stamps from this set and this one also depicts a ukiyo e paintings of Japan