[絵本] 〔２〕田宮坊太郎国宗一代記

小林鉄次郎編 · 1878 · 小林鉄次郎 · 36 pictures

A Meiji-era Japanese woodblock picture book (ehon) compiled by Kobayashi Tetsujirō and published by him in 1878, illustrating the life of the swordsman Tamiya Bōtarō Kunimune for a popular readership. The pages pair bold black-line woodcut scenes of samurai duels, fights and street encounters with dense columns of kana text set around the images. A designer might take the strong graphic contrast of solid black costume shapes against open white ground, the dynamic diagonal sword movements, and the integration of vertical text blocks into the picture frame.

Japanese picture books (ehon)

National Diet Library, Japan (国立国会図書館) · Public Domain Mark (PDM), National Diet Library · More from this library