Author: Sugoroku. Kawabata Ryushi & Hoshino Suiri.
Title: [Kaimono Sugoroku].
Description: Tokyo, 1914 (Taisho 3). Colour printed broadside 79x55cm. A couple of pin holes; a nice copy. ¶ The New Year gift from the magazine Shojo no Tomo - the Girl's Friend. Shopping and fun, fun and shopping, indivisible here as it should be. There is a zen-like approach to this. The goal is the top balcony where the winner can gaze with calm detachment back and down on the world of the great department store. Only by immersing yourself in the experience can you come to comprehend. As the master who gave me the only coherent account of zen I ever heard said, as he bit the top off the eleventieth bottle of beer, "When you're drinking you're only drinking." Kawabata's career took a curious turn during a 1913 stay in America to study western painting. Apparently he was so impressed with the Japanese art he saw in Boston he switched to being a Nihonga painter. Still, he remained being an illustrator for magazines for quite some time. As did most of the early to mid 20th century artists now revered

Keywords: paper games pastimes illustration cartoons manga sugoroku c20th Japan modernism graphic art Asia progress shops shopping women reform