February 21, 2026
When jQuery met ukiyo-e
Japanese Woodblock Print Search
Snap a pic, find a masterpiece — surprise: the jQuery guy built it
TLDR: A powerful image search for Japanese woodblock prints blew up after users realized it was built by jQuery creator John Resig, who even appeared to explain how it works. The community reacted with delight, a little repost drama, museum links, and big excitement for more features to come.
Internet art sleuths are losing it over a site that lets you upload a photo of a Japanese woodblock print and instantly find matching works across museum collections — all 223,891 of them. The top vibe? Pure delight. One user simply gasped, “This is pretty amazing,” as people clicked through eras from early 1700s pieces to the ukiyo-e golden age and beyond.
Then came the plot twist: commenters realized the project was made by John Resig, yes, the creator of jQuery. That set off a wave of nostalgic applause and “internet dad built an art portal” jokes. A friend-of-the-creator chimed in to vouch for his long-running passion, and then Resig himself dropped into the thread like a celebrity cameo to explain he uses image-matching tech (think online “find similar photo” tools) to group prints, and that he built it to unify scattered museum archives. Cue fanfare.
Drama? Just a sprinkle. A user noted there were two ukiyo-e threads in 24 hours, and the moderator slid in with a gentle “reposts are fine” to bless the hype. Meanwhile, someone tossed in a link to a museum in Kurashiki, sparking travel daydreams. The site teases better data and features coming, and the crowd is ready to binge-search centuries of art. Tech meets tradition, and the comments are here for it.
Key Points
- •Ukiyo-e Search enables users to find Japanese woodblock prints across multiple collections.
- •The platform supports image-based search via uploaded images or pasted image URLs.
- •The index currently includes 223,891 prints.
- •The site is organized by historical periods with artist listings and counts of available prints.
- •Future updates promise better data, more images, and improved search features, with notifications available for sign-up.