Through Eastern Eyes: The Art of the Japanese Picture Book
A short history of the Japanese picture book
By Professor Okiko Miyake and Dr Tomoko Masaki
The Emaki, a popular art from between the end of the Heian Period and the
Muromachi Period (roughly between the 8th and 14th centuries, reaching its peak in the 10th12th centuries), functioned in much the same way as the modern picture book. They consisted
of long, illuminated narrative scrolls that were opened horizontally from right to left and told
the story through a combination of text and illustration. Emaki such as Shigisan Emaki and
Bandainagon Ekotoba revealed the visual narrative along with the words, as the scroll was
unrolled.
The Nara-ehon (the Nara picture book), published between the 15th and 17th centuries,
superseded the Emaki. A Nara-ehon, also made by hand, was normally smaller, more easily
handled and considerably less costly than a gorgeous Emaki. These popular illuminated
romances were not regarded as children’s literature, and were often included in the trousseaux
of more affluent brides.
Tekisai Nakamura created 20 volumes for a work entitled Kinmouzui (1666), which was an
illustrated dictionary comparable to J.A.Comenius’s Orbis Sensualium Pictus (1658). At
about the same time, there appeared texts called Akahon, created specially for an audience of
children. The Akahon –which covered subjects such as fairy tales, riddles, nursery songs and
special days in the Japanese calendar- were illustrated booklets, similar to European
chapbooks, comprised of several illustrations bound in red (they are known as ‘the red picture
books’). They were published continuously until the middle of the 18th century. Despite their
impressive antecedents, the history of Japanese picture books for children can be said to have
begun in earnest with the Akahon.
Ukiyoe, the ‘floating-world’ pictures reproduced by woodcut, became very popular at the end
of the 18th century. They consisted of one-page pictures which were folded to make small
narrative booklets for children. Akahon belonged to group known as Kusazoushi: picture
books of high quality, characterised by a printed design combining image and word on each
page.
Though Japan has a long history of narratives which employ images in collaboration with
words, the impact of Western culture has strangled traditional Japanese culture, and the spirit
of Kusazoushi has only been preserved in such things as Manga (cartoon) and animated films.
The Meiji Revolution of 1868 made possible the compulsory educational system established
in 1872 and raised the literacy rate, which resulted in the burgeoning of magazine and
periodical publication. Monthly magazines for children were targeted at audiences
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distinguished on the basis of sex and age. Japanese children were introduced to a small
number of picture books from abroad, one of which was the German picture book, Max und
Moritz (Wilhem Busch, 1865). It was introduced as Wanpaku Monogatari (The Story of a
Naughty Child) and illustrated with woodcuts, but it had little impact on Japanese picture
books.
Sazanami Iwaya, was an author of children’s books and editor of Hakubunkan, which was
typical of the Meiji period. He published children’s illustrated books in various series. Among
them was Japanese Fairy Tales series which presented a carefully organised selection of
Japanese nursery tales, and the Best Japanese Picture Books series, which were smaller and
beautifully designed.
In the Taisho Period (1912-1926), several picture magazines were issued for children,
notably, Kodomo-no-tomo (The Child’s Friend) and Kodomo-no-kuni (Children’s Land).
These magazines covered a variety of subjects, normally one subject in a double-spread,
which provided different types of artists with opportunities to design for children. Those
whose work is recognised as of particular importance include: Kiichi Okamoto, Shigeru
Hatsuyama, and Takeo Takei.
In 1926, the Kindergarten Act was passed, and the following year, Kinderbook, the first
monthly picture book to be directly distributed through kindergarten, appeared. In 1936,
Kodansha, one of the biggest publishers in the country, began publishing their influential
series Kodansha’s Picture Books, which presented four titles every month. In 1938, the Home
Office began to take an interest in picture books, and prepared a list of high quality picture
books.
World War II stopped all cultural activities of this kind, but after the war, the publishing
industry began to thrive. Many publishers started to produce picture books, among which was
the Kodomo-no-hon Books for Children series by the publisher Iwanami. This series emerged
in 1953 from the post-war confusion, and has been published without interruption since.
Japanese publishers and readers have also been open to and influenced by books from other
cultures, many of which are published in translation in Japan, such as The Story of Little Black
Sambo (Bannerman 1899) and Curious George (Ray, 1941).
The picture book boom in the 1970s, when excellent picture books were produced, was
phenomenal; monthly reviews of picture books appeared and exhibitions of original picture
book art became very popular. Suekichi Akaba and Mitsumasa Anno were awarded the Hans
Christian Andersen Prize in 1980 and 1984 respectively. Japanese people recognised pictures
in picture books as art, picture book museums such as the Chihiro Picture Book Museum
opening as a result. In the 1980s artists who also practised in other media began creating
original picture books, for example, Susumu Shingu, a sculptor, Katsumi Komagata, a
designer and Yoko Yamamoto, an etcher.
Characteristic features of Japanese picture book art, such as spacious margins, simplification
and omission, try to convey something words cannot do, making readers themselves fill in the
gaps. Japanese artists move their viewpoints freely rather than using a fixed focus point, and
in the aesthetic of Japanese fine art, often only the central motif of a visual image is
expressed, or a part of the object depicted. A single flower suggests the universe: a part
suggests the whole. Related to this is the fact that Japanese artists prefer depict delicate, small,
pure things to robust, complex things. Simplicity, omission, flatness, freely moving
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viewpoints and a part suggesting the whole are some of the key ideas for understanding
Japanese picture books.
About Sunday, Kota Taniuchi
Kota Taniuchi chooses an interior setting in Sunday, to give the dual audience of child and
adult two different elements to discover – the mysterious travels of a wooden toy train from
one room to another, and a reminder that we live in a world of borrowed light. With a
collection of domestic objects, Taniuchi creates a display of the degree to which light is
reflected off different surfaces in lustres ranging from highest polish to matt. Near-mirroring
occurs on a table-top, porcelain carries a sheen, metal glints, the surface of an egg shell
scatters and diffuses light, rims on glass jars shine, varnished wood gleams, and the soft
undulations of bed linen, the cat’s fur, the carpet’s pile owe their glimmer to the heavily
textured paper on which these dense oil paintings are printed. The eloquence of many of the
design themselves lies in the contrasted and beautifully shaped and proportioned areas of
plain background. The concept of negative space, which brings the background into the
foreground of interest, is traditionally valued in Japanese and Chinese paintings, and has been
accepted in Western culture only relatively recently.
Kota Taniuchi
Kota Taniuchi has created many of his picture books in collaboration with Yasoo Takeuchi.
Yasoo Takeuchi, founder of Shiko-sha publishing house, regards a picture book as a work of
art in itself, and takes great care with the choice of content, paper, ink, printing and binding,
encouraging readers to enter the picture book. Taniuchi himself puts more emphasis on the
pictures than the text, and the traditional Japanese two-dimensional view is often used, rather
than western perspective. He likes to depict minimal objects in an uncluttered space and
introduces broad margins. He invites readers to enter the book and to feel comfortable in it, to
blend with the tranquil images and feel their symbolic meaning.
Sunday is an almost wordless picture book, which tells the story of three wooden dolls who
take a ride on a toy train. In the first double spread, a green wooden doll wearing a red cap
stands smiling beside an egg-stand. The figure of the doll and its upside-down image reflected
on the table make a fantastic image of the real and the virtual as experienced in everyday life.
Taniuchi’s most recent works, including Sunday, show the beauty, warmth and mystery of
existence which people miss their everyday life. His picture books bring readers into his
sophisticated compositions and offer them a feeling of peace, warmth, uneasiness, solitude
and mystery; something apart from ordinary life.
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