Listen, Copy, Read
Popular Learning in Early Modern Japan

Edited byMatthias Hayek and Annick Horiuchi

LEIDEN | BOSTON

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Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
List of Contributors

vii
ix
xii

Editors’ Introduction

1

part 1
From the Elite to Commoners: Transpositions of Learning
and Ideologies
1 From Dialogue to Mass-logue: Oral Performance within
Sekimon Shingaku
23Tsujimoto Masashi
2 Ideological Construction and Books in Early Modern Japan—Political
Sense, Cosmology, and World Views
46
Wakao Masaki
3 Treasure Boxes, Fabrics, and Mirrors: On the Contents andthe Classifĳication of Popular Encyclopedias from Early Modern
Japan
70
Michael Kinski

part 2
From Letters to Popular Encyclopedias: A Myriad of Tools for
Learning
4 Learning to Read and Write—A Study of Tenaraibon
Koizumi Yoshinaga

91

5 What does “Literature of Correspondence” Mean? An Examinationof the Japanese Genre Term ōraimono and its History
139
Markus Rüttermann

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part 3
Private Academies: Production and Transmission in aCompetitive Context
6 The Evolution of ‘Learning’ in Early Modern Japanese Medicine
Machi Senjurō

163

7 From Liuyu yanyi to Rikuyu engi taii: Turning a Vernacular Chinese
Text into a Moral Textbook in Edo-period Japan
205
Peter Kornicki
8 Chinese Scholarship and Teaching in Eighteenth-Century Kyoto
W. J. Boot

226

part 4
Printed Books as Vectors of the Dissemination of
Vocational Skills
9 The Jinkōki Phenomenon: The Story of a Longstanding Calculation
Manual in Tokugawa Japan
253
Annick Horiuchi
10 From Esoteric Tools to Handbooks “for Beginners”: Printed Divination
Books from the Seventeenth Century to the Beginning of theEighteenth Century
288
Matthias Hayek
11 Learning Painting in Books: Typology, Readership and Uses of Printed
Painting Manuals during the Edo Period
319
Christophe Marquet
Index of Book Titles
369
Index of Names
375
Index of Subjects
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chapter 11

Learning Painting in Books: Typology, Readershipand Uses of Printed Painting Manuals during the
Edo Period
Christophe Marquet

Introduction
The production of printed books during the Edo period, from the late seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century, gave rise to a signifĳicant corpus of didactic works destined for the study of painting. Diverse in genre, this category
covers a broad spectrum of publications—compilations and catalogues of pictorial themes and models, painting albums, technical manuals and treatises on
painting—suggesting the emergence at that time of a new approach to knowledge and the introduction of new learning methods.
In a previous study, I dated the appearance of this new ‘genre’ of publications to the decades between 1680 and 1720, and defĳined its typology.1 I willattempt here to address some of the issues surrounding the more general subject of educational works produced during the pre-modern era: the booksellers’ reasons for publishing such books, their readership and their uses. I havebased my study on thirty or so examples, focusing principally on the ‘paratext’(preface, postscript, book advertising) that sometimes provides valuable information on the works’ utilization and audience.
Particular attention will be paid to the Gasen 画筌 (Fishtrap of Painting)by the Kanō artist Hayashi Moriatsu 林守篤. Published in Osaka in 1721, thispainting manual combining both theory and practice offfers classifĳied sets ofpictorial themes as models for the study and practice of painting. The analysisof this prototypical work will, I hope, bring to light the signifĳicance of printed
books in the development of self-tutorship in painting throughout the eighteenth century.
Book historians have documented the remarkable expansion of the publishing industry that occurred in Kyoto, and, more particularly, in Osaka in the lateseventeenth century, as well as the rapid change in character of the publications.
1 Christophe Marquet, Les premiers “livres de peinture” de l’époque d’Edo (1680–1720). Naissanced’un genre et essai de typologie (habilitation thesis, typescript. Paris: INALCO, 2002).

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MarquetThe publishers’ trade catalogues (shojaku mokuroku 書籍目録) issued at thetime clearly show the growing predominance of recreational books and practical manuals over the scholarly and religious texts that originally made up thebulk of the booksellers’ stock. A didactic, more accessible literary genre—largely in the form of compilations and an increasing number of vade-mecum(chōhōki 重宝記) and other types of ‘how-to’ literature—was developed toreach a new, lesser-educated audience. The phenomenon was such that thisperiod is referred to as the ‘publishing revolution’2 or ‘information revolution’.3
Over a period of just two decades, from 1670 to 1692, the production of books
jumped from 3826 to 7181 titles, with an upsurge in the number of educational
and practical works.4 The boom in the book trade thus accompanied the urban
expansion and rise of a merchant class that marked the latter half of the seventeenth century.
Thus, by the turn of the century, this new, so-called ‘popular readership’,which sought to imitate the elite’s manner and customs, had access to a broad
range of manuals offfering instruction in academic subjects, artistic accomplishments and leisurely pursuits. The number and variety of these publications continued to grow throughout the eighteenth century. The bibliographicalclasses in the 1699 trade catalogue5 include compendia, primers, manuals andtreatises on subjects as varied as calligraphy, arithmetic, music, flower arranging, the tea ceremony, or board games.
The catalogue lists works related to painting and craftsmanship under thefollowing heading: “paintings, seals and books of models” (e narabi ni in hiinagata). This mixed category comprises 44 titles, ten or so of which are chōhōki,handy digests of general knowledge or practical guides to gracious living. For
example, the Nan chōhōki 男重宝記 (Vade-mecum for Men, 1693), in addition
to giving a description of the feudal state and society (classes, functions, etc.),
provides basic information on various arts of leisure such as poetic composition, flower display, the tea ceremony, singing, and the art of letter writing.6
One chōhōki in particular, the Banmotsu ehon daizen chōhōki 万物絵本大全
2 Suzuki Toshio, Edo no hon’ya, vol. 1 (Chūō kōronsha, 1980), 119–124.
3 This question has already been discussed, notably by Eiko Ikegami in Bonds of Civility:
Aesthetic Networks and the Political Origins of Japanese Culture (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2005) ch. 11, “The Information Revolution, Japanese Commercial Publishingand Style of Proto-modernity,” and Mary Elizabeth Berry’s Japan in Print: Information andNation in the Early Modern Period (Berkley: University of California Press, 2006).
4 Suzuki, Edo no hon’ya, vol. 1, 122.
5 Abe Ryūichi, ed., Edo jidai shorin shuppan shojaku mokuroku shūsei, vol. 2 (Inoue shobō,1963).
6 See Nagatomo Chiyoji, Edo jidai no shomotsu to dokusho (Tōkyōdō shuppan, 2001), 251.

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調法記 (Complete and Illustrated vade mecum of All Creation), published in
1693 in Osaka and Edo simultaneously, is devoted to the study of painting.7
This small, oblong-shaped book (7 × 16 cm) acts as an illustrated pocket dictionary. The illustrations are classifĳied according to theme: geography, architecture, personages, human body, clothes, quadrupeds, birds, fĳishes, insects,
vegetables, etc. The work was compiled from several famous Chinese sources,
such as the encyclopedia Sancai tuhui 三才図会 (Illustrated Encyclopedia of
the Three Powers, 1609), the famous pharmacopoeia Bencao gangmu 本草
綱目 (Compendium of Materia Medica, 1596), and the Shanhaijing 山海経(The Classic of Mountains and Rivers), an inventory of fantastical creaturesand imaginary lands (end of Ming dynasty editions, 1593, 1619), as well as fromnumerous Japanese dictionaries. It is in fact a condensed version of the Kinmōzui 訓蒙図彙 (Illustrated Dictionary for Instruction), the fĳirst illustrated
Japanese lexicon, published in 1666.
The Kinmō zui includes around 1200 text illustrations (Fig. 11.1) that were,according to the preface, reproduced “from life” or from information provided
by experts. It was meant to serve as a painting manual and includes a short text
on the supposedly “secret” preparation of pigments. Although the work is little
more than a compilation focusing on the rudimentary vocabulary that children were expected to master, it was nonetheless one of the fĳirst of its kind tobe published in Japan. The preface mentions that the work also provides information on “seasonal words” useful to amateur poets.8

Figure 11.1 Banmotsu ehon daizen chōhōki (Complete and Illustrated
vade mecum of All Creation). Woodblock book, Osaka,
Edo, 1693.
Waseda University Library

7 Nagatomo Chiyoji, ed., Chōhōki shiryō shūsei, vol. 37: ‘Yūgei, yūri’ (Kyoto: Rinsen shoten,2007).
8 See Nagatomo, Edo jidai no shomotsu to dokusho, 349–350.

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MarquetThe remarkable wealth of printed art manuals also reflects a radical shift in thetransmission of knowledge. Traditions that were formerly passed down frommaster to disciple and circulated by means of secret, handwritten treatises(hiden 秘伝) within select circles were increasingly made available to thelarger public through commercially published books enabling the student tolearn on his own. The frequently recurring expression hitorigeiko 独り稽古
(solitary study) in the books’ titles perfectly illustrates this change in attitude
to learning.9 Thus, the late seventeenth century saw the popularization ofpainting, together with other leisure pursuits traditionally reserved for theelite, through books designed to reach a larger public.

Learning by Copying
Amateur drawing in Japan may be compared to the phenomenon of dilettantismo pittorico in Italy, which the Italian art historian Giulio Carlo Argan sees asa crucial marker of art’s importance to society.10 This practice, which fĳirst
appeared among the Florentine elite in the sixteenth century, spread throughout Northern Europe (the Netherlands, France and England) over the next two
centuries. It is worth noting the simultaneous appearance of this phenomenon
in both Europe and Japan. In Europe, the fĳirst printed drawing books appearedin the early seventeenth century in Italy. As in Japan, the study of drawing inEurope likewise involved meticulously copying printed reproductions of past
artworks in order to train the hand and eye of the aspiring artist.
In Japan, painting manuals took the form of woodblock printed booklets
that were commercially produced and distributed by renowned booksellers.
Serving primarily as drawing books such as those published in France in theeighteenth century,11 these publications exposed the standard learn-throughcopying method applied in the Kanō workshops where the offfĳicial painters to
the ruling elite were trained. This method, known as funpon shugi 粉本主義
(or “copybook method”), was based on the faithful rendering of ancestralmodels passed down as secret documents from one generation of artists to the
9

10
11

The Kokusho sōmokuroku 国書総目録 (General Catalog of Japanese Books) lists 78“how-to” manuals of the Edo period on varied topics, including 8 on painting, comprising
the expression hitorigeiko in their title. The other topics include cooking, dancing, tea
making, sword expertise, calculation, magic, singing, haikai, fĳishing, massage, flower
arranging, bonsai, sewing, kendō, shamisen, shōgi, etc.
See Marie-Reine Haillant, “La leçon de dessin: apprendre à dessiner à Rome au XVIIe
siècle.” Dix-septième siècle 244 (2009): 536.
See Charlotte Guichard, “Les livres à dessiner à l’usage des amateurs à Paris au XVIIIe
siècle.” Revue de l’art 143 (2004): 48–58.

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next, rather than on direct observation of the natural world and individual
creativity—which is why the method came under sharp criticism during themodern period with the advent of the ‘individual artist’.
Printed painting manuals were intended for a class of readers who, unlike
the warrior class, had not received the basic training in art dispensed in hankō,or fĳief schools. The fact that the production of such publications increased
with the development of education among the ‘common’ classes (throughthe creation of terakoya schools) is not fortuitous. Thus from the mid-1730s
onwards, while the production of such works flourished, the number of newschools multiplied twofold. By the second half of the Edo period, painting
alongside other arts of leisure such as poetry, the tea ceremony, flower arranging, and singing, was taught in a number of these schools in addition to themain subjects of reading, writing, and calculation. It is very likely that thesebooks, especially the more didactic ones, served as class textbooks.12
One of the rare documents attesting to the inclusion of art as a subject matter in these schools is a book of ink drawings from a village school in the regionof Tochigi known as the Seikōdō 精耕堂, and dated 1849 (Fig. 11.2).13 The drawings, accompanied by haikai, were probably copied from models, and depict
scenes from everyday life and seasonal farming activities.
The study of painting, like that of writing through ōraimono 往来物 (printed
primers), consisted primarily in accurately reproducing models in order toattain perfect mastery over form. This slow, step-by-step process also allowed
the art student to assimilate a repertoire of themes for later use in the construction of his own compositions. It is worthwhile recalling here that one of
the “six rules” (rikuhō) of painting established by Xie He 謝赫 in his Guhua-pin
lu 古画品録 (Classifĳied Record of Painters of Former Times, ca. 500), the earliest Chinese treatise on art theory, is that of “transmission through reproduction” (den’i mosha 伝移模写). It is not coincidental that this principle isreasserted in the fĳirst pages of most painting manuals of the Edo period,
including the Ehon hōkan 絵本宝鑑 (Precious Mirror for the Study of Painting),
published in Osaka in 1688, which makes it one of the earliest of its kind.
The pre-eminence of the copying method as a means of learning and transmitting knowledge in Edo Japan is perfectly illustrated by the ryūgaki tekagami
流書手鑑, compendia of “models of pictorial styles” similar to the kohitsu

12
13

Nagatomo, Edo jidai no shomotsu to dokusho, 355.
This school, located in the town of Mooka, between Mito and Utsunomiya, was activefrom 1842 to 1898. Until the early Meiji period, it was attended by around 80 students
divided into four levels. This document may be found in Ichikawa Hiroaki and Ishiyama
Hidekazu, Zusetsu. Edo no manabi (Kawade shobō shinsha, 2006), 10.

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MarquetFigure 11.2 Draw-book used by Seikōdō school (Mooka, Tochigi Prefecture), 1849.
Karasawa Education Museum, Tokyo

tekagami 古筆手鑑, “models of antique writing styles”, employed for the studyof calligraphy.
These collections function as pictorial ‘data bases’ providing samples depicting the painting styles of bygone masters. One example is a representation of apersonage in “sketch style” (genpitsu) typical of Liang Kai, a celebrated painter of
the Southern Song dynasty (active late 12th to early 13th century), executed in the
fĳifteenth century by Sesshū, the great master of ink wash painting, and copied in
the seventeenth century by the Kanō master Tsunenobu (1636–1713) (Fig. 11.3).14
This painting appears in a manuscript picture album representing diffferent
styles and periods and initially used by professional artists to fulfĳill commissions
for “in the style of-” (hitsuyō) paintings.
14

Sesshū: botsugo gohyaku-nen tobubetsu-ten, exhibition catalogue (Tōkyō kokuritsu
hakubutsukan, 2002), no. 60, 84–85 and commentary, 258–259. Also see Christophe
Marquet, “Le rôle des ‘livres de peinture’ (gafu) dans la transmission du savoir artistique
au Japon à l’époque d’Edo,” in La question de l’art en Asie orientale, ed. Flora Blanchon(Paris: Presses universitaires de Paris-Sorbonne, 2008), 227–230.

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Figure 11.3 Kanō Tsunenobu, copy of a painting by Sesshū in the style of Liang Kai, depicting
the Immortal Huang Chuping, who transformed rocks into lambs. Ink on paper,
32 × 29,5 cm, 17th century.
Tokyo National Museum

These privately produced documents were the workshops’ most treasured
property; they were closely guarded and passed on from one generation ofteachers to the next. One print (Fig. 11.4) depicting the interior of a Kanō workshop in Edo in the 1840s shows a backroom where scrolls that served as “models
for folding screens” (byōbu ehon) were locked away. Such materials wereaccorded canonical status and played a vital role as reference works in thelearning process.15
15

On the learning through copying method used in the Kanō school see Christophe
Marquet, “L’évolution de l’enseignement de la peinture dans la seconde moitié du XIXesiècle,” in Éducation au Japon et en Chine. Éléments d’histoire, ed. Annick Horiuchi (Paris:
Les Indes savantes, 2006), 49–76.

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Figure 11.4 Kanō Tōhaku’s atelier in Edo c.1840, from Kyōsai gadan (Kyōsai’s tales of painting). Woodblock book, Tokyo, 1887.
Waseda University Library

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During the Edo period, printed painting manuals targeting a broader, amateuraudience came to replace the studios’ rare and precious collections of models.
The printed editions were often hand-copied for individual study. One such
example is a sketch book of around 40 folios (Fig. 11.5) signed Ekisai Kanjin
易斎閑人 and dated 1835. It contains a selection of motifs diligently reproduced from the Wakan meihitsu gahō 和漢名筆画宝 (Treasury of Celebrated
Painters of Japan and China), Yoshimura Shūzan’s 吉村周山 famous painting manual published in 1767 (Fig. 11.6), which the author of the sketch bookclaims to have copied by “the light a single lamp”. Thus seventy years after it
was fĳirst published, Shūzan’s celebrated manual was still used as reference inthe study of painting. Each motif is reproduced to scale and with great care,probably by tracing, and the name of the artist (but not that of the subjects) is
indicated under each drawing. This document reveals that the material available in printed manuals, which remained fairly costly, was also difffused throughmanuscript copies. The same is true for the ōraimono (primers), and it is quite
likely that while the masters of the terakoya possessed the original printed copies, students learnt from extracts copied by their masters.

Typology of Painting Manuals
Painting manuals of the Edo period form a greatly diverse category that evolved
over the centuries together with the popularization of painting as an art ofleisure and the development of printing techniques.
The fĳirst major study devoted to the subject was carried out by Nakada
Katsunosuke (1886–1945) in the pre-war years. The author based his work on
around 200 titles16 and adopted a chronological system of classifĳication basedon school and artist.
Rather than relying on criteria of style, I have based my typology on content
and readership, and confĳined it to a production period of roughly 150 years,
from the late seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Following thisapproach, I was able to establish six sub-categories for the bewildering array of
publications devoted to the study of painting, which, taken altogether, are estimated to number no less than 1500 titles.17
16
17

Nakada Katsunosuke, Ehon no kenkyū (Bijutsu shuppansha, 1950).
Research on “picture books” (ehon) of the Edo period (model books, manuals, monographs
by artists, as well as illustrated geographical accounts and illustrated anthologies of
poetry, etc.) produced by Kanazawa College of Art provides a list of 1549 titles, classifĳied
by artist (323 artists in total). See Ōta Masako, ed., Edo no shuppan bunka kara hajimatta

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MarquetFigure 11.5 Zhongkui the demon hunter, sharpening his sword, by Kanō
Motonobu (1476–1559). Copy book of 1835, from the manual
Wakan meihitsu gahō (Treasury of Celebrated Painters ofJapan and China). Osaka, 1767.
Private collection

Figure 11.6 Yoshimura Shūzan, Wakan meihitsu gahō (Treasury ofCelebrated Painters of Japan and China). Woodblock
book, Osaka, 1767.
Private collection

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Thematic Illustrated Catalogues
This category appeared in the early 1680s and consists of thematic picture
albums. The illustrations are the work of a single artist, Hishikawa Moronobu
菱川師宣 (1618–1694), a painter of the ukiyo-e school established in Edo andcredited as the school’s primary producer of single-sheet prints. Around fĳifteen
albums, published in the late years of his career (between 1680 and 1694), arerecorded. Each album is devoted to a special theme: feminine beauty, artisans,
warriors, birds, quadrupeds, etc., and the titles are followed by the expression
ezukushi (or the sufffĳix zukushi), literally meaning “complete pictorial collection” or “illustrated inventory”. This expression appears as a category of its own
in the publishers’ trade catalogues as early as 1685. Although the publication
period for this category was fairly short, some works, like the Kedamono ehonzukushi 獣絵本つくし (Complete Picture Book of Wild Beasts, 1694) (Fig. 11.7)
were repeatedly reprinted and used as models in the study of painting well into
the nineteenth century. The albums were designed to serve as manuals, as isclear from the preface and postscript, and a number of their motifs were usedby illustrators of the ukiyo-e school in the early eighteenth century, such as
Nishimura Shigenaga (ca. 1697–1765).18
Compendia of Iconographic Themes
This type of publication appears in the late seventeenth century and consistsof dictionaries enumerating and expounding on various painting subjects
largely borrowed from Chinese tradition. These codifĳied themes, known asgadai 画題 in Japanese, were an essential part of the would-be artist’s curriculum and by the early Edo period were circulating in the form of manuscript, un-illustrated catalogues, the earliest example of which is the Kōso-shū
後素集 (Compendium on Painting, 1623), a collection of around 700 themes
divided into 32 categories.19
The fĳirst illustrated publication of this type is the 1688 edition of the Ehon
hōkan (Precious Mirror for the Study of Painting) mentioned earlier (Fig. 11.8).

18
19

imēji kakumei (Kanazawa: Kanazawa bijutsu kōgei daigaku, 2007), 1–56. By contrast, Jack
Hillier’s capacious work, The Art of the Japanese Book (London: Sotheby’s Publications,
1987), is based on 900 titles. Mitchell’s bibliography (C.H. Mitchell, The Illustrated Books of
the Nanga, Maruyama, Shijo and other Related Schools of Japan. A Biobibliography (LosAngeles: Dawson’s Book Shop, 1972) lists around 680 books published between 1621 and
1867, 20 titles in the “old master works” category, 189 titles in the “gafu, gajo, and othercollections of drawing” category, and 6 titles belonging to both categories.
See the examples given in Robert T. Paine, “Japanese Prints of Birds and Flowers by
Masanobu and Shigenaga,” Oriental Art IX:1 (1963): 22–34.
See Sakazaki Shizuka, Nihon gadan taikan (Mejiro shoin, 1918), 535–690.

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MarquetFigure 11.7 Hishikawa Moronobu, Kedamono ehon-zukushi (Complete Picture Book of
Wild Beasts). Woodblock book, Edo, 1694, reprint 1766.
Private collection

Figure 11.8 Lu Shang, minister of the fĳirst Zhou kings, as a fĳishing hermit. Tachibana
Muneshige (compiler), Hasegawa Tōun (illustrator), Ehon hōkan (Precious
Mirror for the Study of Painting). Woodblock book, Osaka, 1688.
Private collection

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Like most contemporary books on the subject of painting—with the exceptionof Moronobu’s illustrated albums—it fĳirst appeared in the Kamigata region,
more specifĳically in Osaka. Unlike Moronobu’s albums that were destined forchildren and a popular audience, the works included in this category targeteda more scholarly readership, and both their literary and visual contents largely
derived from Chinese sources.
As indicated in the preface, the Ehon hōkan is not only intended for aspiring
artists, but also for those intent on furthering their knowledge of iconographic
themes, especially Buddhist fĳigures and subjects, through historical anecdotes:
When those destined to become painters open this book, they need notlearn the “six rules” as they are offfered directly here. Those who do not
aspire to be painters will gain perfect knowledge of the appearance andstories of past fĳigures. It is with these aims in mind that (this work) wascompiled and reviewed before it was entrusted to the publisher for printing and was to enjoy such long-lasting good fortune in this world.
This type of book may be compared to the emblem books or iconological dictionaries published in Europe in the late sixteenth century. The fĳirst among
these was the Iconologia overo descrittione dell’imagini universali cavatedall’antichità by Cesare Ripa—“for the Instruction of Artists in their Study ofMedals, Coins, Statues, Bassorelievo’s, Paintings and Prints, and to help their
Invention”, as mentioned in the 170920 English edition—, fĳirst published in
Rome in 1593 and subsequently in many other European languages. Like
Cesare’s Iconologia, which compiled allegorical fĳigures from Egyptian andGreco-Roman antiquity with explanations in vernacular language, the Ehon
hōkan assembles around 200 canonical and mainly Chinese-inspired themes,
illustrated and commented in vernacular Japanese.
The content was further popularized in the pirated edition published in Edo
in 1689 under the title Ezu no hayashi 絵図の林 (The Forest of Paintings),
which presents a considerably abbreviated version of the texts in cursive syllabic writing. In both editions, the drawings are still rudimentary and served
mainly to introduce iconographic themes from the Chinese painting tradition
rather than as reference for copy.
Another work in the same vein and also dealing with Chinese pictorial subjects is the Bunrui ehon ryōzai 分類画本良材 (Quality Documents Classifĳied
20

Iconologia or Moral Emblems by Caesar Ripa. . . . Illustrated with Three Hundred Twenty-six
Humane Figures with their Explanations. . . . (London: Benjamin Motte, 1709), “To theReader.”This is a digital offfprint for restricted use only | © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV332

Marquetto Serve as Models, 1715) by Baba Nobunori 馬場信意 (1669–1728), which,unlike the Ehon hōkan, gives a classifĳied presentation of the themes (numbering 158), making it easier to use (Fig. 11.9). The work peruses through the following subjects: enlightened rulers, loyal vassals, Confucian saints and sages,
beautiful and virtuous ladies, brave and wise vassals, The Immortals, poets,and legends.
The compiler, a popular author of historical works, introduces the book by
explaining its origin and purpose: “One fĳine day, a Tansui Koji who had retired
to the Eastern Mountains (of Kyoto) presented me with a painted scroll andtold me he wished to have it engraved on woodblocks for print so that it might
be of benefĳit to children.” He concludes by stating the work’s dual purpose:“Aspiring painters must of course be familiar with the nature of men and things
past. (This work) will also be useful to children in their study of the past.”21 Thismanual was therefore destined to assist both would-be painters (who wererequired to know the fĳigures and legends of the past) and children in theirstudy of history. The insertion of annotations on the art of painting, together
with a catalogue describing colors and tones, heralds the development ofpainting manuals, which make up the following category.
Painting Manuals
This third category includes proper painting manuals combining theory, practice and iconography, and is best exemplifĳied by the Gasen (1721), one of the
fĳirst works of its kind.
The Osaka-based painter Tachibana Morikuni 橘守国 (1679–1748), wasamong the most prolifĳic producers of such manuals, starting with the Ehon
shahō-bukuro 絵本写宝袋 (Picture Book. Treasure Bag of Sketches) published in 1720 (Fig. 11.10). The latter work organizes the themes into three maincategories—China, Japan and the animal realm—each comprising around70 subjects. It not only provides fĳinished compositions, but also motifs anddetails which artists could use to create their own compositions: interior
decoration of palaces, fĳinery, garments, weapons, etc. In his preface Morikuni

21

It should be noted that Baba Nobunori is the son of Baba Nobutake, a Genroku-era
polymath who is credited by a bookseller catalogue of the Kyōhō Era (1716–1735) for awork with a similar title: Gaten ryōzai 画典良材 (Quality Painting Models). Although
Nobunori does not mention his father in the introduction, its nature is perfectly congruent
with the ‘pedagogical’ intentions shown by Nobutake in his other works. See Matthias
Hayek’s contribution to this volume (ch. 10).

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Learning Painting in Books

Figure 11.9 The poet Tao Yuanming. Baba
Nobunori, Bunrui ehonryōzai (Quality Documents
Classifĳied to Serve as Models).
Woodblock book, Kyoto,
Edo, 1715.
Private collection

Figure 11.10

Tachibana Morikuni, Ehon
shahō-bukuro (Picture Book.
Treasure Bag of Sketches).
Woodblock book, Osaka, 1720.
Waseda University
Library

stresses the importance of copybooks as a means of achieving formal truth aswell as its educational value as a substitute for direct observation:
Without copybooks, it is impossible to replicate the form of subjects.
Model books are like the compass and square. Furthermore, since things
are diverse in form, it is impossible to know with certainty when seeing abeast with fangs or horns what it may be for real. Likewise, we may neverknow by its feathers alone the nature of a bird. Only a painting can allow
one to identify a foreign bird or animal thanks to its distinctive rendering of the creature’s form and colour, which enables one to distinguish itfrom others of its kind.
Picture Anthologies
This category is undoubtedly the most profuse in terms of number of works
published in the eighteenth century, and features anthologies of paintings
according to school or style generally designated under the generic termThis is a digital offfprint for restricted use only | © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV334

Marquetof gafu 画譜. These anthologies are in fact nothing more than compilations ofprevious model books, but in some instances also offfer reproductions (someof which were executed on the spot) of duly identifĳied masterpieces. One
such anthology is the Gakō senran 画巧潜覧 (Clandestine View of the Craft
of Painting, 1741) (Fig. 11.11) by Ōoka Shunboku 大岡春卜 (1680–1763), an
Osaka-based artist and the fĳirst to produce such manuals from the 1720s on.
Thereafter, greater attention was paid to the quality of printed illustration
through improved engraving techniques. This category also includes monographs by masters often compiled posthumously by their disciples.
Publications of this type enabled the would-be artist to train in various
styles and thereby to trespass the boundaries of genre or style proper to eachschool.
Collections of Models for Beginners and Artisans
The early eighteenth century also saw the appearance of pictorial collections
more specifĳically intended for the instruction of beginners and artisans.
Among the earliest examples of this type book is the Ehon shoshin hashiradate
絵本初心柱立 (Model Book for the Beginner’s Initiation), a collection ofbasic animal, fĳish and plant motifs with a few explanatory notes (Fig. 11.12),
published in Osaka and Kyoto in 1715. Lengthy Chinese prefaces, theoreticaltexts and practical instructions are generally absent from these collections,which makes them more compact and thereby easier to use. Their purpose is
to offfer ready-to-use motifs bearing no particular historical, literary or stylistic
reference. A number of these books explicitly promote this feature and theirpurely practical purpose in contrast to the more scholarly pictorial anthologies.
One example is Keisai’s 蕙斎 Shoshoku ekagami 諸職画鑑 (Mirror of Painting
for the Artisans), published in Edo in 1794 (Fig. 11.13):
There are indeed many Chinese and Japanese model books circulating
today, but they all offfer reproductions of famous paintings, which makethem impractical for everyday use. The present work, designed by Kitao
Keisai, is destined for artisans who need drawing skills and for those whowish to initiate themselves quickly in the practice of this art. After I was
secretly shown the manuscript, I begged the author to entrust it to me forpublication, under the title of Mirror of Painting for the Artisans, in orderto make it more largely known.

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Learning Painting in Books

Figure 11.11

Man trying to catch a catfĳish with a gourd. Painting by Josetsu (active
1394–1428) at Myōshin-ji temple, Kyoto. Ōoka Shunboku, Gakō senran(Clandestine View of the Craft of Painting). Woodblock book, Osaka, 1741.

Figure 11.12
Dragon shape within a circle. Ehon
shoshin hashiradate (Model Book for
the Beginner’s Initiation). Woodblock
book, Osaka, Kyoto, 1715.
Private collection

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Figure 11.13

MarquetKeisai, Shoshoku ekagami (Mirror of Painting for the Artisans), Woodblock book,
Edo, 1794.
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Learning Painting in Books

337

Naturalist Albums
The sixth and fĳinal category comprises naturalist albums, which, by extension,
were also intended for the study of painting and the instruction of children.
A primary example is Ōoka Shunsen’s 大岡春川 Ehon fukujusō 画本福寿
草 (Model Book of Adonis) (Fig. 11.14), a collection of paintings representing
various types of flora, published in 1737 by one of Ōoka Shunboku’s pupils.
The publisher presents the work as a “book of plant and flower models, with
explanations on the nomenclature, colour application and a list of sources.”22
The work does indeed end with a description of colors and their uses, clearly
denoting its function as a painting manual. It is, however, as the artist himself
admits, largely a compilation of previous manuscript books.
In contrast, the artist Tachibana Morikuni, in the preface to the fĳifth volumeof his Ehon ōshukubai 絵本鶯宿梅 (Model Book. Nightingale in the Plum
Tree) published in 1740 (Fig. 11.15), clearly defĳines the purpose of the work andits readership:
There are many books of models on the subject of plants throughout thefour seasons but in general they merely reproduce the shape of flowers
and leaves, without any concern for realism or detail. For this reason we
have drawn the form of each plant represented here from life (. . . .) sothat the work may benefĳit aspiring painters and students of natural history alike.
This plea in favor of a more realistic way of drawing, based on direct observation of nature rather than on copybooks, serves to remind us that in addition
to the development of popular literature on painting, the eighteenth century
also witnessed the popularization of knowledge about ‘natural productions’(bussan) through the production of illustrated encyclopedic works.
Thus many painters who devoted their time to producing painting manuals
also created this type of album, notably for the purpose of botanical study.
A good example is the Ehon noyamagusa 画本野山草 (Model Book of Field
and Mountain Plants, 1755) by Tachibana Yasukuni 橘保国, Morikuni’s son,who, following in his father’s steps, produced this album of realistic anddetailed illustrations featuring 165 species. This major work of reference wascontinually re-issued until the late nineteenth century.

22

This description appears in the catalogue following the colophon in the 1737 re-edition of
the Ehon karakurenai 絵本唐紅 by Ōmori Yoshikio 大森善清 produced by the Osakabased publisher, Fujiya (Asano) Yahei who also published the Ehon fukujusō.

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MarquetFigure 11.14

Ōoka Shunsen, Ehon
fukujusō (Model Book of
Adonis). Woodblock book,
Osaka, 1737, reprint 1755.
Private collection

Figure 11.15

Tachibana Morikuni, Ehonōshukubai (Model Book.
Nightingale in the Plum Tree)vol. 5. Woodblock book,
Osaka, 1740.
Private collection

Readership and Uses of Painting Manuals
Growth in the publishing industry from the late seventeenth century on was
accompanied by the emergence of a new, permeable community of readerstranscending boundaries of social and professional status.23 The diversity ofpainting manuals presented above suggests a mixed audience and multiple
uses. As we shall see, a book’s paratext (preface, postscript and colophon), in
spite of its rhetorical and conventional character, often provides insight into
the author’s, or publisher’s intentions with regard to the book’s readership andpurpose.
Children and Young GirlsPart of the literature described above was intended for children in view of theirinstruction and edifĳication. This category of young readers is mentioned in theearliest manuals dating from the 1680s, such as the Iwaki ezukushi 岩木絵

23

See Berry, Japan in Print, 32–33.

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Learning Painting in Books339

つくし (Illustrated Collection of Rocks and Trees, 1683) by Hishikawa Moronobu
who introduces his work as follows:(. . .) From my earliest years onwards I developed a taste for drawing andI have assembled a collection of ancient Chinese and Japanese paintings
whose essence I sought to capture through copying. These paintings arelike a mirror’s reflection. In addition to drawings representing the ancient
tradition, I have included, for the sake of beginners and amateurs, drawings executed in today’s style, proper to Hishikawa; I have named thiscollection Illustrated Collection of Rocks and Trees and compiled the texts
published here for the entertainment of children.
I have already mentioned in a previous article the relatively early appearanceof illustrated didactic works for children in Japan at end of the seventeenth
century.24 Early examples include the Kinmō zui and the Teikin ōrai zusan 庭訓
往来図讃 (Illustrated primer for Home Education, 1688). Moreover, the very
fĳirst illustrated literary works, such as the 1608 movable-type edition of the Isemonogatari, mention the use of illustration as a means by which to “delightchildren’s eyes” and facilitate their understanding of fairly difffĳicult texts. Thus
the use of illustration as a pedagogical tool in domains other than drawing wasdeveloped at an early stage.
In the preface of another of his works, the aforementionned Kedamono
ehon-zukushi, Moronobu explains yet again that the book was specifĳicallydesigned for children and its content adapted from more scholarly sourcesthat were too costly and too complex for the understanding of such an
audience:
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Three Powers (Sancai tuhui) comprises
many volumes, which makes it therefore inaccessible to commoners. The
Illustrated Dictionary for Instruction (Kinmō zui) is more accessible, but
likewise founded upon foreign models and beyond the grasp of children.
Hishikawa Moronobu produced the book presently in your hands with
the intention of making the subjects it illustrates largely known andnamed it the Complete Picture Book of Wild Beasts.

24

See Christophe Marquet, “Instruire par l’image: encyclopédies et manuels illustrés pourenfants à l’époque d’Edo,” in La Pédagogie par l’image en France et au Japon, ed. Annie
Renonciat and Marianne Simon-Oikawa (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2009),
75–91.

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340

MarquetMoronobu’s collection is indeed a work of popularization as opposed to thetwo sources he quotes in the above extract: the Sancai tuhui (1609), a Chinese
encyclopedia comprising more than a hundred volumes, and the Kinmō zui,
which, though written in Japanese, remained nevertheless beyond the reach ofchildren.
This category of young readers is often associated with that of young womenor girls for whose benefĳit a large number of instructional and literary works were
produced in the late seventeenth century. This is clearly illustrated by the “catalogue of books useful for women” appearing at the end of Kaibara Ekiken’s Onna
Daigaku takarabako 女大学宝箱 (The Treasure Box of Greater Learning for
Women, fĳirst edition, 1716)—a classic guide to women’s education that was continually reprinted until the late Edo period. It contains entries on as many as 64
titles, all published by Kashiwaraya Seiemon, a famous bookseller in Osaka. The
list features a dozen painting manuals published between 1720 and 1782, including three works by Morikuni, one of the primary producers of this literary genre.
Artists continued to produce picture albums for the initiation of children
well into the late Edo period. Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎 who produced
several albums of this kind makes the following statement in the preface to hislast manual, the Ehon saishiki-tsū 絵本彩色通 (An Illustrated Manual on the
Profĳicient Use of Colors) (Fig. 11.16), published in 1848–49:
I created this little book, entitled An Illustrated Manual on the Profĳicient
Use of Colours, for children who enjoy drawing, which is why I have deliberately selected colour models that can be easily reproduced.25
Drawing books, however, were rarely destined exclusively for children or forgirls; the latter were generally associated with the amateur public at large. It isalso important to remember that dedicating a work to children was a rhetorical expression of modesty serving to signal the popular (as opposed to scholarly) nature of its content.
Beginner Painters and Apprentices
Another category of readership comprises amateurs, beginners and those
aspiring to understand the painting subjects, as noted above with the Ehon
hōkan. Some manuals addressed a given master’s students. The fourth volumeof the celebrated Denshin kaishu. Hokusai manga 伝神開手・北斎漫画(Education for Beginners through the Spirit of Things. Random Sketches by
Hokusai, 1816) contains the following passage in its preface:25

Nagata Seiji, ed., Hokusai no edehon, vol. 3 (Iwasaki bijutsusha, 1986), 118.

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Learning Painting in Books

Figure 11.16

341

Hokusai, Ehon saishiki-tsū (An Illustrated Manual on the Profĳicient Use ofColours). Woodblock book, Edo, 1848.

Master Katsushika Taitō is now celebrated for his drawing talent andreceives so many orders that paper is hard to come by now in the city;
thus having no respite, his students complain that the models he provides are insufffĳicient. Taking to heart their complaints, the master has
sketched various landscapes, fĳigures, animals and objects in his sparetime and has had them printed on woodblocks so as to provide instruction for his pupils and initiation for beginners.
It is difffĳicult to ascertain whether this claim is merely a sales pitch on the publisher’s behalf or whether it is founded, but in any case Hokusai is known tohave had around two hundred and fĳifty pupils throughout his long career andthe production of the fĳirst volumes of his Manga were supervised by his closest
disciples and derived from his own model books.
Artisans
As seen above, painting manuals played a vital role in the training of artists;
the same may be said for artisans, such as woodblock engravers and fabricdyers. These professions necessitated drawing skills and access to models
for decorative purposes. The fĳirst manuals specifĳically destined for artisans

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Marquetappeared in the early eighteenth century. The Somemono-rui moyō-gata. Ehon
keiko-chō 染物類模様方・絵本稽古帳 (Motifs for Dyed Fabric. Study Book
of Pictures), published in Osaka in 1718 by Imura Katsuyoshi 井村勝吉, a fabric designer in Kyoto, contains the following postscript:
There are myriad model books today. The prints included here will enable
one to create fashionable designs for fabric, motifs in today’s style forcloth squares and designs for tobacco pouches.
The book comprises illustrations of scenes taken from the Tale of Genji, fandesigns, famous Japanese landscapes, a chapter detailing and illustrating a
Chinese treatise on landscape painting (Fig. 11.17),26 and around sixty tree andflower motifs.
This type of manual, which was produced till the end of the Edo period,
promoted the reliance on models as requiring no particular artistic talent. One
example is the following passage from the Sōmoku chōjū. Shoshoku edehon
草木鳥獣・諸職絵手本 (Plants and Trees, Birds and Animals. Painting Manual
for Diffferent Crafts) (Fig. 11.18), published a century later in 1818 in Osaka:
This model book, with its vivid reproductions of trees, birds and animals
book, is ideal for making preparatory drawings for engraving and dying.
Other artisans may also employ it; he who uses it will avoid all error in(the representation of) form.
Hokusai himself, in addition to beginner’s painting manuals, produced a great
number of model books for artisans, such as the Shoshoku ehon. Shin-hinagata
諸職絵本・新鄙形 (Picture Book for Diffferent Crafts. New Patterns, 1836),
which was intended for both “art students and artisans.”27
Many craftsmen, namely ceramic designers and manufacturers of inrō
(medicine cases), resorted to painting manuals that were not necessarily
intended for their use.28
26

27
28

“Master Yuzhang’s Poem on the Art of Painting Mountain and Water Landscapes” 豫章先
生論画山水賦 by the painter Jing Hao 荊浩 (active late ninth–early tenth century) in
the Wang-shi huayuan buyi 王氏画苑補益 version (Supplement to the Garden of
Painting by M. Wang) compiled in the sixteenth century.
This indication features in the catalogue following the colophon. See Nagata, Hokusai no
edehon, vol. 3, 282.
There are a great many examples of inrō featuring designs borrowed from eighteenth andearly nineteenth century painting manuals by Morikuni, Shūzan, Sō Shiseki or Sakai
Hōitsu, in Julia Hutt, Japanese Inrō (London: Victoria and Albert Museum Publications,1997), 74–89.

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Learning Painting in Books

Figure 11.17

Imura Katsuyoshi, Somemono-rui
moyō-gata. Ehon keiko-chō (Motifs
for Dyed Fabric. Study Book of
Pictures). Woodblock book, Osaka, 1718.
Private collection

Figure 11.18

Sōmoku chōjū. Shoshoku edehon (Plants and Trees,
Birds and Animals. Painting Manual for Diffferent
Crafts). Woodblock book, Osaka, 1818.
Private collection

343

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Figure 11.19

MarquetKawamura Bunpō, Bunpōsoga (Rough Sketches by
Bunpō). Woodblock book,
Nagoya, 1800.
Private collection

Figure 11.20

Hokusai, Ono ga bakamura
mudaji ezukushi (Series ofimages made from uselesscharacters by the idiot that
I am). Woodblock book, Edo,
1810.

Poets
A number of drawing manuals were also specifĳically designed to provide poetswith simple and ready-to-use models. Indeed, it was common during poetic
gatherings to illustrate one’s poetic composition with an improvised and amusing sketch known as sekiga 席画 (on-the-spot sketch). For this specifĳic purpose,
the Donga hayageiko 鈍画早稽古 (How to Draw Quick and Simple Sketches)
published in Kyoto in 1802, recommends—particularly for the sketching of
fĳigures—resorting to models (funpon) from manuals such as the Ryakuga-shiki
略画式 (Abbreviated Style of Drawing) published by Keisai in 1795, or the
Bunpō soga 文鳳麁画 (Rough Sketches by Bunpō) (Fig. 11.19) by Kawamura
Bunpō, published in 1800, two major works introducing the sketch style.
Hokusai also produced, from 1810 on, several manuals in the same vein presenting a sketch-style method based on combining syllabic characters andsimple geometric shapes and requiring no particular skill in drawing. In the
preface to his Ono ga bakamura mudaji ezukushi 己痴羣夢多字画尽 (Seriesof images made from useless characters by the idiot that I am, 1810) (Fig. 11.20),
he expresses the same intention as Keisai above:

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345

This work will not only be of use to children but also to poets of haikai
and kyōka in order to satisfy the demand for improvised sketches; it isindeed an introductory guide to the sketch style.29

The Gasen, the Prototype of Painting Manuals
The Gasen (Fishtrap of Painting)30 was the fĳirst proper painting manual to be
published. Its title refers to a proverb ascribed to Zhuangzi—“when the fĳish iscaught discard the fĳishtrap”—signifying that the tool is but a means of attaining the goal. Compiled in 1712, the Gasen wasn’t published until 1721 in Osaka—athriving publishing center at the time. The author, Hayashi Moriatsu 林守篤,
also known as Roken 魯軒, however, was a provincial artist in attendance tothe fĳief of Nōgata (today Fukuoka) in the northern part of the southern islandof Kyūshū. Moriatsu was a student of the fĳief’s offfĳicial painter, Ogata Morifusa
小方守房 (?–1732), commonly known as Yūgen 幽元 (or 友元). The latter wasin turn a pupil of the great Kanō master Tan’yū 狩野探幽 (1602–1674), founderof one of the four main Edo workshop in 1621.
Although Moriatsu was not himself a renowned, high-ranking artist, he wasnevertheless afffĳiliated to the line of great Kanō masters that served the shogunate. He stresses this afffĳiliation in the preface to the Gasen and in the lineage’s
genealogical table at the end of the fĳirst volume (“Origin and transmission of
the pictorial heritage of our school”) tracing the origin of this major pictorial
movement back to the monk Josetsu (1394–1428), the father of Chinese-style
ink wash painting, and to the founders of the Kanō school, Kanō Masanobu
狩野正信 (1434–1530) and Kanō Motonobu 狩野元信 (1476–1559).
This prestigious afffĳiliation gave Moriatsu access to the workshop’s ‘secret’
heritage of manuscripts and rare Chinese documents on painting, and, morecrucially, its model books. Moriatsu’s work is, in fact, the fĳirst manual to reveal
the workshop’s secret methods and iconographical sources that were hitherto
passed on as secret transmissions and circulated in manuscript form. This
point is crucial, for the early eighteenth century marked a turning point in attitudes to knowledge and learning generally speaking: the growing availabilityof commercially printed material in the eighteenth century opened up new
domains of knowledge—including art—previously reserved for specialists.
Thus, a great number of manuals by other Kanō painters, such as Morikuni,
Shunboku or Shūzan, were produced in Osaka in the fĳirst half of the eighteenth
29
30

Nagata Seiji, ed., Hokusai no edehon, vol. 1 (Iwasaki bijutsusha, 1986), 45.
See partial transcription of the Gasen, in Sakazaki, Nihon gadan taikan, 1–26.

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Marquetcentury. These ‘town’ or ‘bourgeois’ painters (machi eshi) made a living fromteaching and selling their artworks as opposed to offfĳicial painters who received
a stipend. As a result Osaka saw the development of a new, popularized culturethat could never have occurred in Edo at the time owing to the restrictions
imposed by the offfĳicial workshops. The criticism Morikuni (another student of
the Kanō Tan’yū lineage) is said to have received for disclosing, by means ofprinted manuals, the workshop’s secrets to the public at large reveals the threatsuch manuals posed to the offfĳicial artists who considered themselves the legitimate repositories of pictorial knowledge.31
Difffusion of Treatises and Secret Traditions
Moriatsu’s preface to the Gasen provides some interesting information on the
manual’s composition and purpose:
In my youth I taught myself the art of painting while shaping my mind
through contact with valleys and rocks and deepening my reflection
through observation of mountain and water landscapes. Then, a longtime ago, I received teachings from the venerable master Yūgen, forwhom I prepared the pigments. Recently, I have assembled a number ofalbums from China and our country in a copybook of study models andcalled it the Fishtrap of Painting. I pass on here, without any omission, thethreads of secret tradition based on my daily work for the master and myown personal experience in painting. However, I hope my work will serve
as a guide to ordinary rather than accomplished artists.
Thus the Gasen may be best described as a cross between a compilation of
printed sources and a synthesis of secret, orally transmitted traditions addressing ‘ordinary artists’ aspiring to learn the art of painting rather than professionals. Like most eighteenth century painting manuals, the Gasen is not an original
production, but a reorganization of various sources aimed at reaching a wider
public.
The foreword following the two prefaces mentions two types of source
materials: the oral instructions of master Ogata Morifusa himself and the written sources, half of which are Chinese. It lists no less than 13 titles published for
31

This criticism against Morikuni is mentioned in the Zōho Ukiyo-e ruikō 増補浮世絵類考(Considerations on Currents of Ukiyo-e, augmented edition, 1844): “There are many
reputed painters in the yamato-e style, starting with the Kanō and Tosa masters, but theyjealously guard their craft, whereas Morikuni has worked for the benefĳit of others, which
is why his engravings are disparaged.” Nakada Katsunosuke, ed., Ukiyo-e ruikō (Iwanami
shoten, 1991), 74.

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Learning Painting in Books347

the most part in the seventeenth century and informs us that Moriatsu based
his manual on a corpus of popular literature pertaining chiefly to painting andbotany. Except for one title, all the Chinese sources were re-published in Japanbetween the mid-seventeenth and early eighteenth century. The Japaneseeditions (wakoku) are in fact adaptations in which diacritical marks have been
added to facilitate the reading of Sino-Japanese characters.
These sources include two encyclopedias of major Chinese and Japaneseartists (Tuhui baojian 図絵宝鑑, 1366, Japanese edition 1652; Honchō gashi
本朝画史, 1693), a painting manual (Liweng huazhuan 立翁画伝, better
known as Jieziyuan huazhuan 芥子園画伝, 1679), a book of seals (Wakan inzu
倭漢印図), iconographical albums of legendary, religious or historical fĳigures(Liexian quanzhuan 列仙全伝, 1600, Japanese edition, 1650; Shengxian xiangzan 聖賢像賛, 1593, Japanese edition 1643; Tuhui zongyi 図絵宗彝, 1607,
Japanese edition, 1702; Butsuzō zui 仏像図彙, 1690), botanical texts and materia medica (Bencao gangmu 本草綱目, 1596, Japanese edition, 1637; Honchō
shokkan 本朝食鑑, 1695; Kaibara Ekiken, Kafu 花譜, 1698; Kaibara Ekiken,
Yamato honzō 大和本草, 1709), and lastly, a Japanese dictionary (Wajiga
和爾雅, 1694).
All the Japanese sources are encyclopedic dictionaries published from 1690
onwards—another reminder that the Genroku period saw the flourishing ofcommercial publishing and the mass production of illustrated texts popularizing information on almost every imaginable subject. It is important to notethe inclusion of the celebrated Jieziyuan huazhuan (Manual of the Mustard
Seed Garden), the only Chinese reference that had not yet been published inJapanese at the time (since it was not published until 1748).32
In another section of the Gasen relating to the depiction of bamboo,
Moriatsu mentions another Chinese source that played a fundamental role inthe dissemination of pictorial models in Edo Japan, the Bazhong huapu 八種
画譜 (Eight Varieties Painting Manual, 1573–1628). The Japanese edition was
printed in Kyoto in 1672 and again in 1710, and includes an entire volume
devoted to plants.
Moriatsu’s main task in compiling the Gasen consisted in selecting, translating and reassembling information from a vast array of Chinese and Japanesebooks, to which, as already noted, the majority of readers had no access at thetime. By offfering explanations and adapting them in vernacular Japanese—a
process defĳined as wage 和解 in the foreword—he rendered them accessible
to a wider public.
32

On the Jieziyuan huazhuan’s introduction and reception in Japan, see Christophe
Marquet, “La réception au Japon des albums de peinture chinois (huapu) du XVIIe siècle.”
Histoire et civilisation du livre. Revue internationale 3 (2007): 91–133.

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MarquetBook I is entirely devoted to treatises (Chinese pictorial treatises, secret traditions and a secret treatise on colors), Books II to V present an ordered selection of motifs with explanatory notes, and Book VI deals with various technicalaspects of painting.
In Book I, Moriatsu begins with the “six rules” of painting and provides alengthy interpretation of each. The sixth rule covers the notion of copying andtransmission:
Borrowing and copying models (ehon) from a master by tracing them
onto paper treated with glue, then keeping them safely as if they were
one’s most treasured possessions is the fĳirst step in assembling a proper“copybook” (funpon). The study of painting consists primarily in copying
from copybooks. If one does not possess such a book it is impossible tostudy painting and to train one’s eye. Copying from copybooks allows one
to learn the rules and develop one’s own style (ichiryū). Collecting andfamiliarizing oneself with artworks by the hand (hisseki) of former masters through copying also sharpens one’s perception. When a beginnerpractices copying, his brush is weak, his strokes are uneven and his painting lacks unity and life. But after years of training, ease and fĳirmness areachieved and beauty is attained. If (painting) does not conform to pastmodels, style itself is nipped in the bud.
This passage appropriates the ideas set forth in the Honchō gahō taiden 本朝画法大伝 (The Great Tradition of Painting Methods in Our Country, 1690),
a secret treatise by Tosa Mitsuoki 土佐光起 (1617–1691) who is credited withre-establishing the Tosa school and the Imperial Painting Bureau in the
mid-seventeenth century.33
According to this tradition, the constitution of a ‘copybook’ is the fĳirst andfundamental step in an artist’s training, even before direct exposure to theoriginal artworks. Moriatsu promotes learning by imitation as the only meansof ensuring consistency in style. This method basically involved accurately
tracing models onto a special type of transparent paper hardened with animalglue. According to Mitsuoki, copying directly from a model without tracing is“bad, for if one proceeds thus, the brushwork will lack harmony, only the shapewill be discernable, which is of no use.” Thus the principle of learning throughcopying artworks of previous masters was also true for the Kanō school, which
is simply to say that despite their stylistic diffferences, both schools reliedheavily on Chinese sources and shared similar training concepts and methods.

33

Sakazaki Shizuka, ed., Nihon kaiga-ron takei, vol. 6 (Meicho fukyūkai, 1980), 29.

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In Moriatsu’s text, the terms ehon 絵本 (pictorial model) and funpon 粉本(copybooks) are used synonymously. Ehon is defĳined in the JapanesePortuguese dictionary compiled by the Jesuits in the early seventeenth century
as “treslado, & original pera pintar por elle” (reproductions or original(artworks) for use as models).34 The character fun 粉 in funpon refers to thewhite pigment (gofun 胡粉) made from ground shells and used to make preparatory sketches or to treat the surface for painting. This Chinese term appears
in the fĳirst major treatise on painting of the Edo period, the Kōso-shū(Compendium on Painting, 1623) by Kanō Ikkei 狩野一渓 which gives the following defĳinition:
Copybooks by masters of the past are called funpon (Ch. fenben); our predecessors regarded them as treasures and accumulated a great number ofthem. They were executed hastily, but the resulting lack of detail confers
a naturally sublime character. Funpon dating from the Xuanhe (1119–1125)
and Shaoxing (1131–1162) eras are often of a divine and sublime quality.35
This text is particularly interesting because it shows that copybooks had beenhighly prized in China for quite some time, and that despite their unrefĳined
character, the drawings were valued as precious instructional tools for future
generations, so much so that they were often attributed the so-called “sublime”(myō 妙) and “divine” (shin 神) qualities, the highest of the “three classes” ofart (sanpin 三品).
In the second chapter of Book I entitled “the secret oral transmission of pictorial theories” (Garon denju hiji kuketsu 画論伝授秘事口訣), Moriatsu again
stresses the importance of copybooks and to illustrate his point relates thewords of his master Morifusa and those of Ogata Moriyoshi 小方守義 (1643–1682)—second offfĳicial painter of Fukuoka fĳief and a former student of Tan’yū
in Edo—in dialogue form between master and pupil:
Question: “To paint, some always use copybooks whereas others don’t;
who is right and who is wrong?”Moriyoshi’s answer: “He who discards models, always entrusting to his
own inspiration, will become the clumsiest of artists. He who claims topaint without models will produce poor works indeed, although ordinary
34
35

Yefon according to the supplement to Vocabulario da lingoa de Iapam (Nagasaki, 1604).
Sakazaki, Nihon gadan taikan, 540. This defĳinition is literally borrowed from a famous
Chinese treatise and encyclopedia of artists, the Tuhui baojian 図絵宝鑑 (Precious
Mirror for Painting, 1366), circulated in Japan from the Muromachi period on andreprinted at the beginning of the Edo period, in 1652.

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Marquetpeople may not notice and believe him to be skilful. For this reason, hisknowledge will be perverted and he will never achieve fame.”
The dialogue echoes the ideas expressed by Kanō Yasunobu 狩野安信 (1613–
1685), the great theorist of the Kanō school, in his Gadō yōketsu 画道
要訣 (Secret Keys to the Way of Painting, 1680). Yasunobu introduces his workby opposing painting based on ‘resources’ (shitsuga)—in other words, the artist’s innate talent and disposition—and painting produced through ‘learning’(gakuga)—i.e. practice and mastering technique—according to the preceptsof the great masters.36
He argues in favor of tradition over talent, since the latter is by defĳinition
unique and therefore cannot be inherited. Tradition on the other hand can betransmitted from one generation to the next by means of manuals. This secrettreatise, a copy of which was given as a certifĳicate to every artist on completing
his training, epitomizes the essential teachings and methods of the Kanōschool which maintained its status as the ruling power’s offfĳicial academy for
four centuries.37
This is not to say however that the learning methods lauded in the Gasen
can be reduced to the mere copying of ancestral models. When referring to hismaster’s teachings, Moriatsu also emphasizes that once the training period isover, sole reliance on copying cannot produce a ‘lively’ painting, a quality considered essential:
My master told me: “When one begins, one must paint without departingfrom the original; if one relies excessively on models once one has grasped
the essential principles of the art of painting, the brush strokes willappear hesitant, (the painting) without life and the style dull.”Book I ends with a section on the “secrets of pigment preparation” (Fig. 11.21)
explaining the preparation and uses of around sixty colors. This information ispartly taken from the Honchō gashi (History of Japanese Painting) publishedthirty years earlier in 1691.

36
37

Kobayashi Tadashi, Kōno Motoaki, ed., Teihon Nihon kaiga-ron taisei, vol. 4 (Perikansha,
1997), 10. This secret treatise was fĳirst published in 1935.
On Kanō methods of training during the Edo period, see Karen M. Gerhart, “Talent,Training, and Power. The Kano Painting Workshop in the Seventeenth Century,” andBrenda G. Jordan, “Copying from Beginning to End? Student Life in the Kano School,” inCopying the Master and Stealing his Secrets: Talent and Training in Japanese Painting, ed.
B.G. Jordan and Victoria Weston (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2003), 9–30;
31–59.

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Learning Painting in Books

Figure 11.21

351

Hayashi Moriatsu, Gasen (Fishtrap of Painting). Woodblock book, Osaka, 1721.
Waseda University Library

An Iconographical Dictionary
In addition to the theoretical and practical information it offfers, the Gasen’s
main appeal as a self-study manual lies in its coherent collection of illustrations featuring around 450 motifs organized by theme, much in the manner of
iconological dictionaries. Books II to V survey the following topics successively:
the natural world, the animal kingdom, and fĳinally personae, both Chinese andJapanese. Although this order does not correspond strictly speaking to a prescribed order of progression in the learning process, artists in the Kanō workshops did in efffect begin their training with the study of nature and animals
before broaching the subject of human fĳigures.
Most of the models are anonymous but some are signed by celebrated masters of the past. These include paintings of bamboo groves by the Chinese artists Su Dongpo 蘇東坡 (1037–1101) and Tan Zhirui 檀芝瑞 (late thirteenth toearly fourteenth century), and works by the following Japanese artists: Sesshū
and Tosa Mitsunobu (1434–1525), and more signifĳicantly, the Kanō masters of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: Kanō Motonobu (1476–1559), Kanō
Morinobu (or Tan’yū) and his brother, Kanō Yasunobu (1613–1695), founder ofthe offfĳicial Nakabashi workshop in Edo; Tan’yū’s son, Kanō Morimasa 狩野
守政 (1653–1718), as well as three of Tan’yū’s pupils, Ogata Moriyoshi, Ogata

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MarquetMorifusa (who both became offfĳicial painters of Fukuoka fĳief) and Momota
Ryūei 桃田柳栄 (1647–1698).
Thus, nearly all the models Moriatsu selected for the Gasen were drawn
from the Kanō school’s heritage preserved in his master’s workshop and fromhis own copybooks. Four of the illustrations by Tan’yū are dated and of thesame type as those found in the Tan’yū shukuzu 探幽縮図 (Reduced Paintings
by Tan’yū), a collection of Chinese and Japanese masterpieces reproduced in
Tan’yū’s Kajibashi workshop between 1658 and 1674, and intended for use as
reference in the assessment of artworks.
The main purpose of the Gasen was therefore to propagate the teachingsand methods of the Kanō school and its great masters, namely Tan’yū and his
descendants. With time this concept evolved and painting manuals, notably
those produced by Shunboku, came to be more eclectic. Moreover, the primitive character of the illustrations indicates that the rendering of style was not
yet a concern.
One of the Gasen’s singularities is its dual purpose as book of motifs and picture album: Moriatsu takes up a method exposed in certain Chinese manuals,
such as the Jieziyuan huazhuan, which consists in decomposing a painting subject, especially landscapes, into micro-components. In Book II devoted to “landscape”, “plants and trees” and containing 109 illustrations, Moriatsu presents a
selection of celebrated landscapes depicted in both Chinese and Japanese styles
and then decomposes the paintings by presenting each component separately,
like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to be assembled. He begins with the water’s movements (Fig. 11.22) and then moves on to flora “of the four seasons”, itemizing
around sixty species and giving brief instructions on color application for each.
Next are trees and branches, followed by rocks and plants, notably bamboo andpine, all of which constituted the painter’s core repertoire.
Book III is devoted to the subject of birds, animals (quadrupeds) and fĳish,
and contains 125 illustrations (Fig. 11.23). Particular attention is paid to the specifĳic coloring of birds.
The most important section however is that devoted to human fĳigures,
which alone take up two volumes. Book IV deals with “Chinese fĳigures”(Fig. 11.24) and includes 135 illustrations classifĳied according to the following
themes: saints and sages, Daoist immortals, warriors, ascetics, sages andBuddhist personages.
Kobayashi Hiromitsu,38 a Chinese art historian, has shown that around halfof the 48 Daoist immortals included in the manual were taken from the Liexian
38

Kobayashi Hiromitsu, “Chūgoku gafu no hakusai, honkoku to wasei gafu no tanjō,” inKinsei nihon kaiga to gafu edehon ten, vol. 2 (Machida: Machida shiritsu kokusai hanga
bijutsukan, 1990), 106–123.

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Figure 11.22

Hayashi Moriatsu, Gasen (Fishtrap of Painting). Woodblock book, Osaka, 1721.
Waseda University Library

Figure 11.23

Hayashi Moriatsu, Gasen (Fishtrap of Painting). Woodblock book, Osaka, 1721.
Waseda University LibraryThis is a digital offfprint for restricted use only | © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV354

Figure 11.24

MarquetHayashi Moriatsu, Gasen (Fishtrap of Painting). Woodblock book,
Osaka, 1721.
Waseda University Libraryquanzhuan (Collected Biographies of Immortals, 1600), while the other half
were borrowed from the Xianfo qizong 仙仏奇踪 (Marvelous Traces ofImmortals and Buddhist Saints, 1602), a Chinese album of Daoist and Buddhist
fĳigures which is not mentioned among the sources. This work was not reprinted
in Japan but a number of Japanese artists in the seventeenth century, including
the great painter Sōtatsu, used it for reference in the composition of theirpaintings.
Book V is devoted to “Japanese fĳigures” (Fig. 11.25), and contains 74 illustrations whose themes are classifĳied according to hierarchical order: the “sevendeities of Good fortune”, the “three gods of poetry”, the “fĳive immortals of
poetry”, the god of study Tenjin, scenes from the Genji monogatari, and the“three poems of dusk”, followed by more prosaic scenes (acrobats, puppet
theater, sumo wrestlers, etc.) and lastly, warriors and various details (fĳinery,hairstyles, garments) necessary for the depiction of historical scenes.
In the fĳinal chapter of Book V, entitled “the human body and the art of painting licentious subjects and ‘Spring paintings’ (‘pillow images’)” (Fig. 11.26),
Moriatsu relates his teacher’s advice in this fĳield. Most of the instructions concern colors and their specifĳic application with regard to the subject’s genderand age. The presence of this theme among classical subjects may startle
but it also shows that the Gasen was indeed intended for the instruction of
professional artists who derived considerable income from the depiction

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Learning Painting in Books

Figure 11.25

355

Hayashi Moriatsu, Gasen (Fishtrap of Painting). Woodblock book, Osaka, 1721.
Waseda University Libraryof erotica, hence the inclusion of this subject matter in the accomplished artist’s curriculum.
Book VI deals with various technical aspects of painting: tools, surface preparation, brush techniques, marouflage of folding screens, painting assemblage,
rolling scrolls, etc. (Fig. 11.27).

Conclusion: Painting Manuals under Criticism
The production of painting manuals was not exempt from criticism on the partof the artists themselves. Their reactions are worthwhile examining in order tounderstand the conceptions of learning at the time and the changes brought
about by the publication of self-teaching manuals.
One such critic was Yanagisawa Kien 柳澤淇園 (1704–1758), who, in his
essay Hitorine 独寝 (Sleeping Alone),39 which he wrote in 1724 at the age of 20,
describes the Gasen (published three years earlier) as “useless” and its illustrations as “pathetic”. He recommends instead the use of Chinese manuals, andenumerates at least 15 titles including the Jieziyuan huazhuan. Coming as hedid from an influential background and having trained under the best masters
39

In Iwamoto Kattōshi, ed., Enseki jisshu, vol. 2 (Kokusho kankōkai, 1907), 42.

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MarquetFigure 11.26

Hayashi Moriatsu, Gasen (Fishtrap of Painting). Woodblock book, Osaka, 1721.
Waseda University Library

Figure 11.27

Hayashi Moriatsu, Gasen (Fishtrap of Painting). Woodblock book, Osaka, 1721.
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Learning Painting in Books357

of his time, this young literati artist was bound to favor paintings and books
from China. This attitude reflects the prevailing value system that accorded
canonical status to Mainland sources whereas adaptations were viewed withscorn. The latter have, regardless, played a determining role in the dissemination of theoretical texts and, more especially, iconographic models by making
them available to the public at large.
Another critic of printed manuals was Sakurai Sekkan 桜井雪館 (1715–
1790), an offfĳicial painter to the Mito fĳief and self-proclaimed descendant of
Sesshū’s tradition. His workshop reportedly trained over two hundred artists.
In his Gasoku 画則 (Principles of Painting) published in 1776, he denounces
the excessive reliance on printed painting manuals, a practice, which, in theeyes of most professional artists like him, had grown rampant by the latter halfof the eighteenth century:
A pupil asks: Lately a good many books on painting have been publishedin our country. Are they of any benefĳit in the study of painting?
Answer: Most have nothing to offfer. Generally, they claim to represent theworks of past artists, but since they have no regard for the rules of painting, the brush’s intention eludes them. Moreover, the artisan’s skill or lackof it in making the woodcut only serves to emphasize the errors in thebrushwork. They merely show the form of things.40
His disapproval reflects the professional painters’ defĳiant attitude towards
printed painting manuals that failed to convey all the inherent subtleties of theoriginal artworks. The authors of early eighteenth century painting manuals
were already aware of the limitations of woodblock printing as a form of transmission. Shunboku in his Wakan meihitsu ehon tekagami 和漢名筆画本
手鑑 (Mirror of Painting from Celebrated Painters of China and Japan, 1720)
confesses “that woodblock prints fail to render the ink’s graduated tones”.41
The Gasoku, however, pays greater attention to the depiction of the subtle
shades produced by ink wash painting (Fig. 11.28), and the quality of its prints
is comparable to those found in Morikuni’s Unpitsu soga 運筆麁画 (Rough
Pictures to Learn Brush Strokes) in 1748.42

40
41

42

Sakazaki Shizuka, ed., Nihonga no seishin (Tōkyōdō shuppan, 1942), 107–108.
See Christophe Marquet, “Shunboku et Morikuni: deux maîtres de la gravured’interprétation japonaise du XVIIIe siècle,” in Ōoka Shunboku and Tachibana Morikuni,
Esquisses au fĳil du pinceau (Paris: INHA; Arles: Editions Philippe Picquier, 2007), 10–14.
The Unpitsu soga is partly reproduced in Marquet, Esquisses au fĳil du pinceau, 2007.

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Figure 11.28

MarquetSakurai Sekkan, Gasoku (Principles of Painting). Woodblock book, Edo, 1776.
Ebi Collection (Ebi0705), Ritsumeikan University

Sekkan’s criticism reflects the professional artists’ fear of losing their privileged
status as sole repositories of knowledge as a result of its difffusion throughreadily available printed manuals. Sekkan makes an interesting distinction
between formal reproduction and the efffect of the ‘brush’s intention’ (hitsui),i.e. ‘style’, which only the master can transmit. In other words, he diffferentiates
proper ‘manuals of transmission’ (denfu) providing instruction on the rules ofpainting with the aid of pictorial models, from simple ‘copybooks’ ( funpon)
that merely reproduce ancient masterpieces or the oeuvre of a given master.
The latter category of painting manuals, which grew extremely popular in thelast decades of the eighteenth century, encouraged art students to copy themasterpieces without learning the rules of painting. Sekkan likens these copiers who regard themselves as artists to those who, because they can recite anancient poem, consider themselves composers.
Among the critics there were those who believed that such manuals, namely
the albums produced by Morikuni, should not be used by “real painters”, but
only by illustrators of the ukiyo-e school and children. This opinion is expressedby Kurihara Tōzuisha 栗原東随舎, a popular writer of the late eighteenth century, in his evaluation of a votive painting depicting the warrior Minamoto
Yorimasa striking down a fantastical, monkey-headed beast (Fig. 11.29), a theme

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359

inspired by the Tale of Heike. The painting was given to the temple of Asakusa
in 1787, which earned its author, the artist Kō Sūkoku 高嵩谷 (1730–1804), a
certain amount of fame. Tōzuisha reckons that the painting was copied fromprinted model books such as Morikuni’s Ehon shahō-bukuro (Fig. 11.30), rather
than from copybooks of antique models, hence the errors and anachronisms in
the painting.43 He berates the artist and others of his kind for resorting toprinted illustrated manuals instead of relying on knowledge passed down
across generations of teachers by means of secret copybooks—which is the
only way of ensuring consistency in style over the ages.
In contrast to critics who believed that the popularization of learning painting lead to oversimplifĳication and error, there were those who promoted theuse of such manuals for educational purposes, owing to their illustrations thatwere perceived as particularly efffective teaching tools. In his essay Jugyō-hen
授業編 (On Teaching, 1783)44 Emura Hokkai 江村北海, a Confucian thinkerof the late eighteenth century, recommends showing children encyclopedias
and illustrated manuals, such as the Kinmō zui or Morikuni’s Ehon kojidan
絵本故事談 (Model Book of Things Past, 1714) (Fig. 11.31), a famous collectionof legends and painting subjects, in order to waken their natural curiosity andprompt them to inquire about the images’ meaning (etoki). Thus a number ofpainting manuals were also intended as household primers for the instructionof children in addition to serving as models for artists.
Painting manuals published throughout the eighteenth century and thefĳirst half of the nineteenth century provided artists from all schools, including
the ukiyo-e illustrators, with a formidable repertoire of subjects and an abundant source of inspiration as is clear from the exhibition held at the Machida
City Museum of Graphic Arts in 1990.45 The widespread use of printed painting manuals among amateur painters and trained professionals alike brought
about the development of new approaches to artistic creation. Since access tovisual models—previously reserved for a select few—was facilitated by thecirculation of picture albums, a growing number of artists sought to distinguish themselves in new ways, by emphasizing for instance, certain stylistic

43
44
45

Kurihara Tōzuisha, Kokon zōdan omoide sōshi, in Nihon zuihitsu taisei, 3rd series, vol. 2(Nihon zuihitsu taisei kankōkai, 1929), 508–512.
Nagasawa Kikuya, ed., Edo jidai Shina-gaku nyūmon-sho kaidai shūsei, vol. 3 (Kyūkyo
shoin, 1975), 264.
Kinsei nihon kaiga to gafu edehon ten (Machida: Machida shiritsu kokusai hanga
bijutsukan, 1990).

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360

MarquetFigure 11.29

Kō Sūkoku, Genzanmi Yorimasa nue taiji-zu (Minamoto Yorimasa
defeating the chimera called Nue), Votive painting, 265 × 352 cm, 1787.
Asakusa temple, Tokyo

Figure 11.30

Tachibana Morikuni, Ehon shahō-bukuro (Picture Book. Treasure Bag ofSketches). Woodblock book, Osaka, 1720.
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Learning Painting in Books

Figure 11.31

361

Tachibana Morikuni, Ehon kojidan (Model Book of Things Past). Woodblock
book, Osaka, 1714.
Waseda University Libraryfeatures. Satō Yasuhiro,46 an art historian on the Edo painting, even goes so far
as to say that the production of painting manuals in this “era of technicalreproduction”—to take up Benjamin’s expression—had the ‘backlash’ efffectof favoring the cultivation of artistic originality among artists active in Kyoto
in the second half of the eighteenth century. Painting with one’s fĳingertips
and fĳingernails (shitō-ga), improvising under the efffect of liquor (suisaku)(wherein painting becomes performance), distortion/exaggeration, and thespecial attention some artists (such as Taiga, Buson, Jakuchū or Shōhaku)
accorded to the depiction of matter reflect the many ways in which artists ofthat time sought to set themselves apart from painters who simply reproduced motifs from printed copybooks. The ‘publishing revolution’ that
occurred in the late seventeenth century had a profound impact not only on
learning methods but also, as a ripple efffect, on all aspects of artistic creation
during the Edo period.
(Translated by Véronique Martin)46

See Satō Yasuhiro, “Juhasseiki no zen’ei shinwa,” in Edo bunka no hen’yō: Juhasseiki nokeiken, ed. Momokawa Takahito (Heibonsha, 1994), 121–161.

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MarquetReferences
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Anonymous. Banmotsu ehon daizen chōhōki 万物絵本大全調法記 (Complete andIllustrated vade mecum of All Creation). Osaka; Edo, 1693. http://www.wul.waseda.
ac.jp/kotenseki.
Anonymous. Ehon shoshin hashiradate 絵本初心柱立 (Model Book for the Beginner’s
Initiation). Osaka; Kyoto, 1715. http://www.kanazawa-bidai.ac.jp/tosyokan/edehon/.
Anonymous. Sōmoku chōjū, Shoshoku edehon 草木鳥獣・諸職絵手本 (Plants andTrees, Birds and Animals. Drawing Manual for Diffferent Crafts). Osaka, 1818.
Anonymous. Xianfo qizong 仙佛奇踪 (Marvelous Traces of Immortals and Buddhist
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———. Kedamono ehon zukushi 獣絵本つくし (Complete Picture Book of Wild
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———. Ehon saishiki-tsū 絵本彩色通 (An Illustrated Manual on the Profĳicient Use ofColours). Edo, 1848–1849.
———. Ono ga bakamura mudaji ezukushi 己痴羣夢多字画尽 (Series of images
made from useless characters by the idiot that I am). Edo, 1810.
———. Shoshoku ehon. Shin-hinagata 諸職絵本・新鄙形 (Picture Book for Diffferent
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———. Shoshoku ekagami 諸職画鑑 (Mirror of Painting for the Artisans). Edo, 1794.
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Nakamura Tekisai 中村惕斎. Kinmō zui 訓蒙図彙 (Illustrated Dictionary for
Instruction). Kyoto, 1666.
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