Sketch-tour books and prints of the early twentieth century [end]

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Scott Johnson

Afterthoughts

I first became attracted to the sketch-tour books and prints in 1981 when C.H. Mitchell was preparing his article on Bun'endô's 1917 Hanshin Meishô Zue print series. Mitchell asked me to find some background information on the artists and publisher. One discovery led to another, and it finally became clear to us that Hanshin Meishô Zue was far from a fluke, but rather the culmination of a genre which had developed in books. To keep his own essay sharply focused, Mitchell concentrated on details of the five artists, the thirty prints and the publisher, Kanao Tanejirô. But his own curosity was piqued, and he urged me to continue looking for examples of the sketch-tour genre, and ultimately to write a survey of the whole publishing phenomenon. This is it. I make no claim to completeness in this essay. The books and prints referred to are important, but there are doubtless others unknown to me which will add new information, and perhaps greatly alter perceptions of the genre. Even though many of the artists active in the sketch-tour genre were or became major figures in 20th century Japanese art, there are no standard references in any language on these books.

It is, in short, a new field of collecting. As with Shijô book collecting of a generation ago, every collector has the potential of making an important new discovery. The largest public collection of sketch-tour books and prints is in the Japanese Antiquities departmentof the British Museum, London. 'Hometown' material is always collected by Japanese institutions, but, as far as I know, there is no comprehensive collection of this genre anywhere in Japan.

English references

1. Hirada Minoru, Arts of Japan (No. 6): Meiji Western painting. Weatherhill/Shibundo, New York 1974.

2. Hillier, Jack, The art of the Japanese book (2 vols.). Sotheby's, London 1987.

3. Jenkins, Donald, Gordon Gilkey and Louise Klemperor, Images of a changing world: Japanese prints of the twentieth century. Portland Art Museum, Portland 1983.

4. Johnson. Scott. 'The artists stretch their legs: the "sketch-tour"books and other developments in Japanese graphic arts of the early twentieth century', in: Bulletin of the Kansai University Institute of Oriental and Occidental Studies (Vol. 19), Osaka 1986, pp. 21-39.

5. Mitchel, C.H.. 'Hanshin Meishô Zue. A little known earlv shin-hanga series', in: Essays on Japanese art presented to Jack Hillier. Robert G. Sawers Publ., London 1982, pp.118-124.

6. Roberts, Laurance P., A dictionary of Japanese artists. Weatherhill, Tokyo 1976.ô

7. Smith, Lawrence, The Japanese print since 1900: old dreams and new visions. The British Museum, London 1983.

8. Takashina Shuji, J. Thomas Rimer and Gerald D. Bolas. Paris in Jopan: the Japanese encounter with European painting. The Washington University, St. Louis 1987.

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