応挙画譜
A Japanese picture book (ehon) published in 1891 by Tanaka Jihei, reproducing the brush painting of the Maruyama Okyo school, a manual for artists and craftsmen. The pictures are monochrome ink studies of plum, peach and flowering branches, with a seal-marked tree trunk, drawn in loose sweeping strokes with dark wet ink against white paper. A designer could take from them the economy of a single curving branch, the contrast of solid dark wood against sparse blossom, and placement that leaves much of the page empty.
