Shinshō Fuji 新頌富士
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Commentary by Alicia Volk

Posted October 17, 2016

Shinshō Fuji (New praise of Fuji) is a poignant collection of short, thirty-one syllable tanka (短歌) poems celebrating Mount Fuji by the naturalist poet Maeda Yugure (1883–1951). [1] Published in June 1946, not long after the end of the Pacific War, the book was designed and illustrated by Onchi Kōshirō, a renowned print artist and leader in Japanese modern book design. Onchi is said to have created over eight hundred books between 1911 and 1955, including novels, art books, photography manuals, children’s books, and encyclopedias. His designs span an astounding range of artistic idioms, from early twentieth-century cloth-bound tomes with richly embroidered gold patterns to the sparer and more dynamic modernist styles he evolved in the 1930s. For Onchi, it was important that a book “talk to the reader as if it were alive.” [2]

Onchi classified Shinshō Fuji as a “Japanese book” (wahon 和本)—that is, conceived in the Japanese manner—but he described it as “a hybrid born of the anomalous conditions of the postwar.” He explained:

For the book wrapper (honbunbukuro 本文袋), that is, the Western binding, the cover is blue Japanese paper (washi 和紙) with a cloud pattern printed in gofun (胡粉; a pigment comprised of calcium carbonate powder). The printing blocks were carved by hand due to the conditions of the time. The front is perfectly ordinary but I am proud that I made it work together with the same pattern printed in gofun on the white space of the back cover. The letters on the cover are also self-carved. [3]

For the jacket Onchi contributed a woodblock-printed picture of Mount Fuji in black sumi ink that extends majestically across the front and back covers; inside, two hand-printed color woodcuts provide alternate views of the sacred mountain. Mount Fuji towers above the clouds in one image that is rich with blue and russet ink, and in the other its snow-capped peak is framed by foreground mountains aglow with autumnal color. [4]

The main text of the book is printed in metal type. It comprises 101 verses by Maeda Yugure that were composed between 1914 and 1945, immediately following Japan’s surrender; these are accompanied by Yugure’s preface and postscript. The preface is dated to “early spring” (risshun立春), which traditionally connotes the New Year. Yugure certainly intended the symbolism of new beginnings to complement the sense of timelessness that Mount Fuji typically conveys. In his postscript he writes that in compiling the collection of poems on Mount Fuji after Japan’s defeat in war, “I was able to experience a feeling of contentment. I was furthermore even able to feel that my life is surely developing in a new direction from here.”

During the war Mount Fuji was a potent symbol of the enduring sacredness of Japan and its imperial mission, but here, in the context of loss and occupation, the mountain serves as a source of solace and encouragement. “Ah, Fuji!” Yugure exclaimed at the opening of the book, “Our land of Japan has fought and lost and for this reason your expression is all the more modest and humble.”

Selected readings:

Timothy Clark, 100 Views of Mt. Fuji (London: British Museum Press, 2001).

Jack Hillier, The Art of the Japanese Book,2 vols. (London: Sotheby's Publications by Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd., 1987), see esp. vol. 2, 880–81, 1022.

Jack Hillier and Lawrence Smith, Japanese Prints: 300 Years of Albums and Books (London: British Museum Press, 1980).

Onchi Kōshirō hangashū 1891–1955『恩地孝四郎版画集1891–1955』(Tokyo: Keishōsha, 1975).

Onchi Kōshirō: iro to katachi no shijin『恩地孝四郎: 色と形の詩人』(Tokyo: Yomiuri Shinbun, 1994).

Onchi Kunio 恩地邦郎, Onchi Kōshirō: sōhon no waza『恩地幸四郎: 装本の業』(Tokyo: Sanseidō, 1982).

Lawrence Smith, Japanese Prints during the Allied Occupation 1945–1952: Onchi Kōshirō, Ernst Hacker and the First Thursday Society (London: British Museum Press, 2002).

Lawrence Smith, The Japanese Print since 1900: Old Dreams and New Visions (London: British Museum Press, 1983).

Copies in other collections:

British Museum, London
Georgetown University, Joseph Mark Lauinger Memorial Library
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
National Diet Library (NDL), Tokyo
National Library of Australia (NLA), Canberra
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Shinshū University Library, Matsumoto
Tokyo Metropolitan Tama Library
Tsurumi University Library, Yokohama
University of Maryland, College Park
Waseda University Library, Tokyo
Worcester Art Museum

[1] All the translations are by the author. The wrapper of this book lists the longer title, (Kashū) Shinshō Fuji 歌集新頌・富士(Collection of poetry: new praise of Fuji). Hillier 1987, vol. 2, 1002, adopts the English title Fresh Praise of Fuji.

[2] From a 1935 series of essays titled “Sōhon bijutsu no kōsei” 装本美術の構成and cited in Numata Hideko沼田英子,「Onchi Kōshirō no sōhon no bigaku」恩地孝四郎の装本の美学/“The Aesthetics of Book Designs of Onchi Kōshirō,” in Onchi Kōshirō: iro to katachi no shijin 1994, 315.

[3] Onchi (1952) 1973, 131.

[4] The title of the first work is given in English as Mt. Fuji: On New Year Morning in Onchi Kōshirō hangashū 1975, 286.