The book is called Shi zhu zhai shu hua pu, ‘Manual of Calligraphy and Painting’ and was first published in 1633 in Nanjing. The book is comprised of eight categories - birds, plums, orchids, bamboos, fruit, stones, ink drawings (round fans) and miscellany - and is illustrated by 50 different artists and calligraphers. It is the earliest known example of multicolor printing in the world: printed by the technique of polychrome xylography known asdouban invented and perfected by Hu Zhengyan 胡正言 (1584-1674). The method involves the use of multiple printing blocks which successively apply different coloured inks to the paper to reproduce...
Brush Writing in the Arts of Japan
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (ca. 662–710), One of the Three Gods of Poetry From the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shū), vol. 1. Yashima Gakutei, ca. 1820's This is the last weekend for those of you in the New York area to see this incredible exhibition on view. Lucky for the rest of us the The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an online exhibition featuring 185 items. What is brush writing?: The art of brush writing in East Asia both encompasses and transcends the Western aesthetic concept of "calligraphy,"... Japan inherited from China a fascination with the artistic potential of inscribing characters with flexible...
Bukowski in a bottle
For his final project for a typography class Valentino Borghesi choose four books from the Bukowski canon and hand wrote the titles inside the shape of a different shaped bottle.The books:- Notes of a Dirty Old Man.- Tales of Ordinary Madness.- Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live With Beasts.- Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness.The bottles:-Whiskey-Rum-Wine -AbsintheMore of Borghesi's Charles Bukowski Book Series here