Author: Kawakami Sumio.
Title: [Kogei no.96].
Description: Tokyo, 1939 (Showa 14). 23x15cm publisher's illustrated wrapper; woodcut and enamel on the cover, [4], colour woodcuts on two leaves, mounted photo plates on 17 leaves, 64pp of text with small illustrations, publisher's adverts. A nice copy in original wax paper wrapper. ¶ This issue of Kogei (craft) is devoted to Kawakami. His work is charming, simple to the point of naive so of course it isn't. Kawakami nursed a nostalgia for a time he did not experience. I'm sure there's word for that which isn't nationalism, xenophobia or popularism. In his case it was the printed Meiji enlightenment and the confusion of westernisation that fascinated him and it is easy to see the models of early Meiji primers for children in his prints.

Keywords: graphic art illustration c20th Japan prints woodcuts sosaku modernism meiji