Jinbutsu ryakugashiki

Jinbutsu ryakugashiki (Abbreviated Pictures of People), a woodblock-printed book of undated late-Edo origin held by the Art Institute of Chicago, is the human-subject volume in Kitao Masayoshi's foundational ryakugashiki series. Where the companion volumes catalog birds, fish, plants, and landscapes, Jinbutsu ryakugashiki turns Masayoshi's abbreviated brush style toward the full social register of Edo Japan: men and women, young and old, samurai, monks, townspeople, travelers, performers, and laborers. The figures are rendered with deliberate economy, each captured in the posture and gesture that defines a recognizable type. The volume serves multiple functions: it is a sourcebook for other artists learning to draw figures, a treatise on pictorial method, and a stand-alone work of art that can be enjoyed for its own visual wit. The book also documents the ethnographic curiosity that runs throughout Masayoshi's printed output, his interest in capturing the textures of Edo daily life and the visible social distinctions of dress, posture, and tool. Modern scholarship has emphasized how Hokusai's Manga, which appeared in its first volume in 1814, builds on the example of Jinbutsu ryakugashiki and its companion volumes. The Art Institute of Chicago's holding is an essential reference for any study of Edo figure illustration.