Mokugo zuanshū / Mokugokai hen
A 1908 Kyoto publication from the Yamada Unsōdō press, collecting Japanese Meiji-period color prints by Asai Chū (1856-1907), apparently issued as a record of woodblock work for a print-collecting audience. The plates are reproductions of the prints in grey tones, with a ghostly figure, paired circular roundels of pine and birds, a bird wing study, and a courtly scene behind striped screens and blossoms, showing how Japanese composition handles figures, foliage and flat pattern. A designer might borrow the compressed circular framing, the sparse white-on-dark silhouettes and the stripe-and-blossom panelling as graphic devices.
