Part 2 from The Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual (3rd Chinese edition) : [volume 4]

1800 · 13 pictures

This is a Japanese woodblock-printed botanical manual of 1800, the Mustard Seed Garden painting manual, derived from a Chinese edition and issued to teach amateur painters how to render plants. Its pages show chrysanthemums drawn as outline sketches and as ink and light colour washes, arranged in open spreads with a few characters in each. A designer could take from them the economy of single-line contour drawing, the layering of pale wash over ink-grey leaves, and the way a flower head is built from radiating petals.

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art · No known copyright restrictions · More from this library