Shasei sōka moyō (Patterns of Flowers and Grasses from Life), Volume 1 (Jō)
写生草花模様 上
by Furuya Kōrin
- Date:
- 1907
- Medium:
- Woodblock-printed design album (zuanchō); ink and color on paper
写生草花模様 上
by Furuya Kōrin
Volume one (Jō, 上) of Shasei sōka moyō (Patterns of Flowers and Grasses Drawn from Life) is the first of two woodblock-printed design albums issued in Kyoto in 1907 by the publisher Yamada Unsōdō, designed by Furuya Kōrin (1875-1910). The Rijksmuseum's copy (RP-P-2005-557A) was acquired by the museum as part of its programme of collecting Meiji design albums and is digitized through Wikimedia Commons. The volume gathers floral and grass motifs treated in Furuya's late-Meiji Kyoto manner — a neo-Rinpa idiom in which naturalistic observation (shasei) is distilled into flat, repeating decorative patterns suitable for textile, lacquer, and metalwork application. The printing combines many-colour impressions with metallic and mineral pigments and with embossed ([karazuri](/glossary/karazuri)) backgrounds, exploiting the full technical apparatus that Kyoto colour woodblock printing had perfected by the early 1900s. Like the other zuanchō issued under Yamada Naosaburō, the album sat at the intersection of working-trade utility and connoisseurial collecting: it functioned as a pattern library for the Nishijin kimono houses and Kyoto lacquer ateliers, while also entering libraries and museum collections from Amsterdam to Boston as a free-standing decorative-art object.
写生草花模様
1907
Woodblock printed book in two volumes; ink and color with metallic pigments on paper
縞々
1904
Color woodblock-printed design album (zuanchō); ink and color on paper
古代陳設十六図
1903
Woodblock printed book (orihon, accordion-style binding), ink on paper
光琳模様
1907
Two-volume orihon (concertina-binding) album; color woodblock on paper
Shasei sōka moyō (Patterns of Flowers and Grasses from Life), Volume 1 (Jō) (写生草花模様 上) was created by Furuya Kōrin (古谷紅麟) in 1907.
Shasei sōka moyō (Patterns of Flowers and Grasses from Life), Volume 1 (Jō) depicts birds & flowers.
