illustrated book;
print
- Museum number
- 1989,0314,0.57
- Title
- Object: Nihon no shiro 日本の城 (Castles of Japan)
- Description
-
Illustrated book. Woodblock-printed. With illustrations of twelve castles. Inscribed and signed.
- Production date
- June 1944
- Dimensions
-
Height: 28.90 centimetres
-
Width: 38 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
-
The book illustrates twelve castles in different seasons:
Hirosaki
Hikone
Komoro
Chiyoda (the Imperial Palace, formerly Edo Castle)
Osaka
Okayama
Nagoya
Inuyama
Matsuyama
Ogaki
Kochi
Himeji
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Smith 1994
Hillier, 1987, p. 217, reproduces in colour another opening from this book but from a later edition of 1950. The text is by Kashida Hideto. Hashimoto cut his own blocks for the twelve expansive double-page subjects and three vignettes, but the printing was done by Yokoi Yoshikazu. The daring designs and bold but unliteral colour work betray the benign influence of the artist's great friend Hiratsuka Un'ichi and can claim to be his finest landscapes, preferred for this catalogue to his single sheet-prints. In spite of the nationalistic text, obligatory under the censorship of the time, the scenes themselves have a poetic poignancy which goes far beyond Japan's then military society.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1989
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1989,0314,0.57
- Additional IDs
-
Other BM number: RV.57 (Robert Vergez number)
