Kamisaka SEKKA
Kamisaka SEKKA
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Cho senshu. 2 Volumes, each with 25 double-page plates of coloured woodcuts depicting butterflies by Sekka. 8vo.,bound accordion-style (orihon) in green silk over boards. Kyoto: Yamada. Unsodo, 1903.
A fine copy of this landmark of twentieth century Japanese design. “A colour-printed book of elaborate decor based on the forms of butterflies. All the designs are ‘patterned,’ but some conform to the actual shape and markings of believable butterflies, though there is certainly no intention to be entomologically accurate, but in some, the artist simply used the insects as a theme for variations, distorting and manipulating the butterfly shape until it is barely recognizable, often achieving the kind of art nouveau that we associate with some Secession jewelry . . . Sekka is especially inventive when he allows swarms of butterflies to float over the page, achieving colourful geometric diagrams, or, in one, amorphous silver shape outlined in brown, green and yellow, as evocative and irrational as abstracts by Arp”, (Hillier).
Hillier, The Art of the Japanese Book p. 976. Keyes, Ehon. The Artist and the Book in Japan, p. 240.