絵本忠義水滸伝 巻41-44
This is a Meiji-era Japanese picture book (ehon) from 1884, compiled and translated by Shimizu Ichijirō and published by him, adapting the Chinese vernacular novel Water Margin for a general readership. The pictures are woodblock-style black-and-white line prints of mounted and foot fighters with spears, arrows and swords, set in dense ink-black or white-hatched backgrounds, with Japanese captions in columns beside the figures; a designer might draw on their bold figure silhouettes, dynamic motion lines and graphic use of negative space.
