Book of Humorous Poems (Kyōka shū)
A Japanese woodblock-printed book of kyōka, comic thirty-one-syllable verses, made by the artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi in the nineteenth century for a readership of urban townspeople. Each double-page spread pairs columns of printed poetry with a small black-and-white figure drawing of a woman, couple, or household object set on an empty ground. The figures are drawn in clean, economical line with little shading, so a designer might borrow the spare outline style, the placement of text beside single figures, or the flat patterned kimono textures.
