(Universal Illustrations) Isai's Drawing Method (Banbutsu zukai Isai gashiki), vol. 2

Volume two of the Banbutsu zukai Isai gashiki (Universal Illustrations: Isai's Drawing Method), held by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (accession E.7001-1916), is one of two volumes of Katsushika Isai's most influential drawing manual, published in Edo in 1864 (Genji 1) by Yamatoya Kihē. The album is an encyclopedic pattern book of the kind Hokusai had pioneered with his Manga (begun 1814): hundreds of small sketches across every category of subject matter, including human figures in characteristic poses and costumes, animals and birds, plants, landscape motifs, tools and vessels, architectural ornament, and decorative pattern, laid out in dense compositions that could be consulted both as instructional models for younger artists and as reference designs for craftsmen working in textiles, lacquer, metalwork, and ceramics. Volume two extends the catalog begun in volume one with additional figural subjects and pattern motifs, and demonstrates Isai's command of the rapid, economical line that the drawing-manual genre demanded. The V&A acquired the album in 1916, during the institution's period of active accession of Japanese illustrated books, and it has since served as a reference point for the study of late-Edo pattern-book culture and of the Meiji-period craft revival that drew on these earlier graphic sources.