Transmitting the Spirit, Revealing the Form of Things, Volume 1 to 15 of Hokusai Sketchbooks (Denshin kaishu: Hokusai manga, shohen - jugohen)
This is a Japanese sketchbook of 1848 by Katsushika Hokusai, printed as a set of volumes of pen-and-ink studies of people, animals and landscapes for the general reader and for artists copying them. The double-page spreads hold loose figure studies: a porter carrying a wrapped bundle, a sage on a rock, travellers on a road, and a bridged valley. Designers can take from them the economical single-line contour, the gesture caught in a few strokes, and the way figures are scattered across the page with open white space between them.
