Santai gafu

Santai gafu 三体画譜, FSC-GR-780.238
front cover
inside front cover - page 1
pages 2-3
pages 4-5
pages 6-7
pages 8-9
pages 10-11
pages 12-13
pages 14-15
pages 16-17
pages 18-19
pages 20-21
pages 22-23
pages 24-25
pages 26-27
pages 28-29
pages 30-31
pages 32-33
pages 34-35
pages 36-37
pages 38-39
pages 40-41
pages 42-43
pages 44-45
pages 46-47
pages 48-49
pages 50-51
pages 52-53
pages 54-55
pages 56-57
page 58 - inside back cover
back cover
Description
Contents
Commentary
Accession No.
FSC-GR-780.238
Title
Santai gafu 三体画譜
Date
1816 (Bunka 13)
Artist
Gekkōtei Bokusen 月光亭墨僊 (1736-1804)
Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎 (1760-1849) [in collaboration]
Toenrō Hokusen 斗円楼北泉
Tōnansei Hokuun 東南西北雲 (active early 19th century)
Totoya Hokkei 魚屋北渓 (1780-1850)
Publisher
Eirakuya Tōshirō 永楽屋東四郎
Kadomaruya Jinsuke 角丸屋甚助
Minoya Ichibē 美濃屋市兵衛
City
Nagoya
Description
1 volume in modern case
Binding
fukurotoji (pouch binding)
Medium
Woodblock printed; ink and color on paper; paper covers
Marks
Owner's seal: Pulverer Other: one unidentified vermillion seal
Format
hanshibon
Dimensions
22.9 x 15.9 x 1.2 cm
Provenance
To 2007 Dr. and Mrs. Gerhard Pulverer, Germany, to 2007 From 2007 Freer Gallery of Art, purchased from Dr. and Mrs. Gerhard Pulverer in 2007
Credit Line
Purchase, The Gerhard Pulverer Collection — Charles Lang Freer Endowment, Friends of the National Museum of Asian Art and the Harold P. Stern Memorial fund in appreciation of Jeffrey P. Cunard and his exemplary service to the Museum as chair of the Board of Trustees (2003-2007)
Usage
Usage conditions apply

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Accession no. FSC-GR-780.238

 

Title: Santai gafu  三体画譜

 

NIJL catalogue no. 241

 

Volume numbers: Complete in one volume

 

Contents/Foliation: Preface signed Shokusanjin  蜀山人 (Ōta Nanpo  太田南畝)

 

Seals and inscriptions: Owner's seal: Pulverer

Other: one unidentified vermillion seal

 

Additional colophon data: Colophon lists the names of all the artists who collaborated with Hokusai

 

Notes: Main title from daisen

The title slip, printed in light red, has faded almost completely.

Santai gafu  三体画譜

FSC-GR-780.238

Commentary by Ann Yonemura

Posted November 2014

 

By the time Hokusai reached his fifties, his reputation in the fields of print design, book illustration, and painting was well established. He attracted many pupils and followers, although he did not establish a formal studio. Santai gafu, published in 1816, was one of several edehon  (painting manuals) designed by Hokusai and his pupils. These edehon  presented techniques for a vast array of subjects and also elucidated features of Hokusai’s individualistic style, which was both adopted and adapted by his followers. The colophon acknowledges the assistance of four of those pupils: Hokkei, Hokusen, Bokusen, and Hokuun. Santai gafu built upon the success of the first volumes of Manga  (random sketches), inviting comparisons among images of the same subject.     

 

Santai gafu  presents each subject in three images. A symbol shown beside each image represents each mode: square (shin), triangle (gyō), and circle (sō). In some groups, the contrasts are less apparent than in others, and some have a playful element in their compositions. The three modes occasionally appear to represent a distinction of viewpoint or form, but there is often a connection, however indirect or humorous, to the formal distinctions among calligraphic styles: standard, semicursive, and cursive. In calligraphy, these terms represent changes in form and style that are expressed as increasing simplification and fluidity of connected brushstrokes as well as reducing the number of individual brushstrokes and details, such as dots and lines. The visual comparisons and broadly expressed allusions to calligraphic styles must have enhanced the appeal of this volume for an audience that already had an appetite for Hokusai’s entertaining sketchbooks.

 

 

Selected reading:

Jack Hillier, The Art of Hokusai in Book Illustration  (London: Sotheby Parke-Bernet Publications; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 142–43.

Toda Kenji, Descriptive Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Illustrated Books in the Ryerson Library of the Art Institute of Chicago (1931; repr., Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2005), p. 256.

 

Copies in other collections:

Art Institute of Chicago, Ryerson Collection

British Library, London

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Library  NE1325.K3 A75 1816

Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden (1353-67)