玉泉習画帖 麟
A Meiji-era Japanese drawing manual (ehon) by Mochizuki Gyokusen, published in 1891 by Tanaka Jihei, intended for students learning to paint plants in ink. The four pictures show botanical sprigs rendered in woodblock-style black ink silhouettes with sparse leaves and flowers on blank white grounds. A designer could take from them the economy of negative space, bold solid ink masses against open paper, and the asymmetric placement of single branches.
