虫類画譜
A Japanese picture book of insects (Mushi rui gafu) illustrated by Kitagawa Utamaro and published in Tokyo in 1892 by Okura Shoten, for artists and general readers of woodblock-style natural history. The pages show insects such as cicadas, grasshoppers, beetles and a caterpillar among leaves, vines and seed pods, drawn in bold black silhouette and fine outline. A designer could take from them the economy of black mass against open white ground, and the way a single insect anchors an asymmetric plant composition.
