Newly Selected Fifty Poets of the Tenmei Era, One Poem Each (Tenmei shinsen gojūnin isshu)
A late eighteenth-century Japanese woodblock picture book from Edo, published in 1786 by Tsutaya Jūzaburō and written by Santō Kyōden, presenting fifty comic poets each with a portrait and a verse. The pages show seated figures in robes and hats beside lines of cursive calligraphy, printed in restrained colour on cream paper. A designer could take from them the economical pairing of a full-length figure with a block of vertical text, and the way the poses and costumes carry character with few lines.
