Ōson (Hōitsu) Picture Album (Ōson gafu)
Ōson gafu is a Japanese picture album of plants and flowering branches made by the painter Sakai Hōitsu, published in 1817 for readers of woodblock botanical sketchbooks. The pages show sprays of leaves, berries, buds and lilies in soft colour, each with a red seal and inscribed poems in the margins, giving a designer a clear model of economical botanical composition, open negative space, and calligraphic text placed beside imagery.
