絵本楠公記 10巻 [1]

山田得翁斎作, 速水春暁斎画 · 1800 · 田中吉兵衛[ほか6名] · 42 pictures

This is a Japanese woodblock picture book from 1800, a ten-volume ehon retelling the life of the samurai Kusunoki Masashige, written by Yamada Tokuōsai and illustrated by Hayami Shungyōsai for a general reading public. The pictures are black-and-white woodblock line drawings with crisp contours and sparse shading, showing court scenes, military encampments, and interior tableaux with figures in robes and armour. A designer could draw on their economical line work, layered flat planes, and the way the pages divide a continuous scene across a spread.

Japanese picture books (ehon)

National Diet Library, Japan (国立国会図書館) · Public Domain Mark (PDM), National Diet Library · More from this library