Keisai soga or Sanryo gazu Keisai soga by Kuwagata Keisai - 1839

OFFERING: The second edition of Volume I, the only volume in the five volumes set with print designs by Keisai. The last book of woodblock prints Keisai supervised, it is distinguished by a series of prints showing articles and tools of Tokyo artisans and tradesmen. The work was published posthumously. EDITION NOTE: Initially, each volume was issued independently with designs by a different artist. Volume I demonstrates Keisai's improvisational, abbreviated (soga) style with its uncanny wit and verve and has 42 color woodblock prints. RARITY: Very Scarce. For the first edition, 4 institutions outside of Japan own the set: the Art Institute of Chicago, Library of Congress, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Yale. CONDITION: Acceptable. Untouched in the publisher's wrappers, now worn, prints in good condition. Prints: Top edge worm trail begins at rear and quickly becomes small: several prints have another small worm trail in a margin. First few prints are slightly dusty; sheets for Prints 14 and 16 with top edge staining, and soiling that continues into top of print; several sheets with minor edge soiling, final sheets with fore-edge thumbing; afterword with edge tears, and a top corner tear with loss. / Wrappers: blind printed design (phoenix and clouds) rubbed off; soiling, some edge wear. / Title Slip: four characters at head rubbed, a bottom corner detached from mount. / Binding: functional; upper side with thread detached after hole 3, lower side with loose thread between holes 3 and 4 and detached at bottom corner. PAGINATION: Complete; folded sheets unnumbered but 46 pages with preface, introduction, afterword, and 42 color woodblock prints with no text, one full-page print after the Keisai introduction, followed by suite of 41 pages, each with two half-page framed views. Keisai's seal is printed at the end of the introduction. FORMAT: Publisher's orange wrappers and spring green title slip, sewn with 4-stab holes in the fukuro-toji style. SIZE: Wrappers: 230 x 155 mm / Pages (within single border): 172 x 118 mm. KEISAI [1764-1824]: Originally a pupil of Kitao Shigemasa, he initially worked as a ukiyo-e artist under the name, Kitao Masayoshi, chiefly producing woodblock designs for kibyoshi. In 1794, he became painter-in-attendance to Matsudaira Yasuchika, Daimyo of Tsuyama, Okayama Prefecture. It was at this time he began to use the name, Kuwagata Keisai. As official painter for a daimyo, he worked in the Kano School style and later formally studied with Yosen'in Korenobu. But after 1794, he became principally known to the public, including fellow artists, as a designer of painting instruction manuals, presenting a series of highly influential sketchbooks in the soga style he is credited with refining to the fewest brushstrokes, a technique associated with Zen temple artists. The style requires a mastery of composition and brush technique and allowed Keisai to work quickly and display subtle transient effects. In the first manual (1795), Kesai succinctly states his aesthetic; "the sketches depict the spirit of the subject without manipulation of the form." REFERENCE: Brown, p. 124 / Forrer, Eirakuya Toshiro, publisher at Nagoya, p. 229 / Forrer, Keisai : le maitre du dessin abrege : tous les albums de style Ryakuga / Hillier & Smith, p. 133, no. 137 / Mitchell, p. 355 / Ryerson, p. 215 / Smith, World Without Walls: Kuwagata Keisai's Panoramic Vision of Japan. FOR ADDITIONAL IMAGES: please request.