Sōka ryakugashiki

Soka ryakugashiki (Abbreviated Pictures of Plants and Flowers), a woodblock-printed book dated to circa 1813 in the Art Institute of Chicago's holdings, is the botanical volume in Kitao Masayoshi's celebrated ryakugashiki series. The title combines so (grasses) and ka (flowers) with his signature ryakuga ("abbreviated picture") and shiki (treatise) terminology, announcing a comprehensive survey of the plant world rendered in his characteristic economy of line. Flowering plants, grasses, vegetables, and decorative species are each captured with the few decisive strokes that capture essential leaf shape, blossom geometry, and stem rhythm. The volume served multiple functions: a sourcebook for other artists learning to render botanical subjects, a contribution to the broader Edo culture of natural-history illustration, and an aesthetic object that could be enjoyed for its own brushed beauty. By the early 1810s when this volume appeared, the ryakugashiki series had been continuously developing for nearly two decades, and Soka ryakugashiki demonstrates how Masayoshi continued to extend the encyclopedic ambition of the project across new subject categories. The Art Institute of Chicago's holding completes the museum's strong representation of the full ryakugashiki series and provides an essential reference for studying Japanese botanical illustration in the late Edo period.