Looking for art in all the wrong places

January 10, 2007 9:13 AM

Where can I find prints of Edo-period wildlife illustrations like these?

Googling the artist's name, "Edo wildlife illustrations," or any other combination I can think of just returns that site and outside links to it.

If you can recommend similar artists or styles, I'm all ears. I'm more interested in calligraphic/humanist styles than, say, Haeckel-type stuff. Bonus points for sea creatures.

posted by sonofslim to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

You might try looking into ukiyo-e if you haven't already. Ukiyo-e is a style of woodblock prints made between the 17th and the 20th centuries. While the subject matter is most often portraiture, the artform embraces landscape and wildlife (and NSFW erotica). A quick googling gives me this print by Bunrei.
posted by lekvar at 9:43 AM on January 10, 2007

Visit peacay's weblog, BibliOdyssey, and go through the amazing archives. Finding and scanning just this kind of illustration is one of his specialties. Misteraitch's Giornale Nuovo is another fantastic resource.
posted by iconomy at 9:48 AM on January 10, 2007

Fishies!

Found it googling for 'japanese naturalist illustrations'. These particular fish are probably a little later than Edo-period, but still nice drawings of fish.
posted by CKmtl at 9:58 AM on January 10, 2007

if you ever happen to be in Kyoto, visit their Museum of Traditional Crafts.
posted by snofoam at 10:11 AM on January 10, 2007

Response by poster: great links, all... anyone know of a gallery or site where i can order prints along these lines? should have made that clearer in my original post.
posted by sonofslim at 10:16 AM on January 10, 2007

There was a post to the blue about this the other week - there are direct links to further material. Go through all the added links in the comments too - the ones I added (armchair aquarium etc) are specifically to do with sea creatures. Links at BibliOdyssey are basically here. [Thanks for the plug iconomy!]
posted by peacay at 10:18 AM on January 10, 2007