Kyōsai’s Drawings for Pleasure (Kyōsai rakuga) : [volume 1]

Kawanabe, Gyōsai, 1831-1889 · 1881 · Tokyo: Morita Tetsugorō 森田鉄五郎; Takeda Denuemon 武田伝右衛門 · 10 pictures

Kyōsai's Drawings for Pleasure is a Japanese woodblock-printed sketchbook of nature studies, made by the painter Kawanabe Gyōsai and published in Tokyo in 1881 by Morita Tetsugorō and Takeda Denuemon for a general audience of amateur painters. Its pages show birds, flowers, insects and crustaceans in loose ink outline with light colour washes, set within thin ruled frames on warm paper. A designer could take the economical line work, the open placement of single motifs on blank ground, and the restrained pastel accents as a model for spare, naturalistic illustration.

Kawanabe, Gyōsai, 1831-1889

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art · No known copyright restrictions · More from this library