Large-Format Flowers (Zōkei Kaben Chō)
造形花弁帖
- Date:
- 1923-1929
- Medium:
- Three-volume leporello album of color woodblock prints (nishiki-e); published by Yamada Naosaburō, Kyoto
造形花弁帖
Zōkei Kaben Chō (Large-Format Flowers, literally Album of Sculpted Petals) is the three-volume color woodblock book set that established Tanigami Kōnan's reputation among Kyoto kachō-e specialists in the Taishō era. Issued by the Kyoto publisher Yamada Naosaburō between May 1923 and June 1929, the set bound thirty-four full-color flower designs into three accordion-style leporello albums whose pages opened to reveal an uninterrupted double-page spread for each subject. The works held at the Rijksmuseum (object number RP-P-2005-623, gift of Mrs. M. C. Salomonson-Asscher, 2005) preserve the complete set with their original purple, green, and chestnut covers and printed title strips intact. The aesthetic program is ambitious: Kōnan staged each flower against an untreated [washi](/glossary/washi) ground without horizon line or background motif, allowing the printed petals, leaves, and stems to assume monumental presence. The Yamada workshop pulled the impressions in the deep, evenly saturated colors characteristic of the best Kyoto kachō-e production of the period, with overlay [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations that suggest depth without resorting to outline shading. Across the three volumes the subject matter moves from spring blossoms through summer peonies to autumnal foliage, mirroring the seasonal rhythms long codified in Japanese painting but rendered here with the scientific specificity that Kōnan had absorbed from his training with Kōno Bairei and from his interest in Western botanical illustration. The Rijksmuseum complete copy is among the most significant Kōnan holdings outside Japan and demonstrates why the artist's work has been collected steadily by botanical libraries and East Asian print departments since the mid-twentieth century.
造形花弁帖 二
1926-04-20
Color woodblock leporello album; second of three volumes; twelve double-page peony images; published by Yamada Naosaburō, Kyoto
造形花弁帖 上
1923-05-15
Color woodblock leporello album; first of three volumes; published by Yamada Naosaburō, Kyoto
造形花弁帖 三
1926-06-05
Color woodblock leporello album; third of three volumes; ten double-page images of flowers, blossom branches, and autumn trees; published by Yamada Naosaburō, Kyoto
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Large-Format Flowers (Zōkei Kaben Chō) (造形花弁帖) was created by Tanigami Kōnan (谷上廣南) in 1923-1929.
Large-Format Flowers (Zōkei Kaben Chō) depicts birds & flowers.
