Taisho Bird
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My favourite design from a little book about Taisho era graphics that I found in Japan. Unfortunately I feel too sick to entirely decipher the artist’s name - Tatsuo *something*-zawa. Japanese names are often really difficult to read because they can be written with very rare kanji that might not be pronounced according to the standard dictionaries. |
The publisher, Seigensha, specialises in art books. Especially the series of small pocket books, filled with graphics, are a delight. What intrigues me about the art of the Taisho era (1911-1925) is to see how the japonisme that inspired Western impressionists and Art Nouveau designers returns to its “roots” with new elements of modernism and futurism in tow. Like a matryoshka doll, you find a Western influence under the Japanese surface, and Japanese inspiration under that Western mask, and beneath that “original” Japanese, the 19th century Western art that secretly inspired Hokusai and Hiroshige… Until it is impossible to say which trait is “original” and which is “borrowed”.