A set that celebrates the craftsmanship behind the tools of shodo (calligraphy), beautifully made by Okamura Kichiemon.
Okamura had travelled around Japan conducting extensive research on local traditions of craft. He himself was a textile dyer who had apprenticed under the great katazome master Serizawa Keisuke. In the 1950s, Okamura began to produce beautiful books using the same technique as katazome, but applied to paper, usually in an edition of 100 copies. The present set is one of his finest productions, detailing how calligraphy tools are made by groups of skilled craftspeople.
The first volume 'heaven' explains the process of making the calligraphy brush, or fude: from sourcing and drying the brush hairs, to bundling and trimming them. In the final spread there is a lovely array of brushes which illustrates their wide variety. The second volume, 'earth', shifts focus to the ink stone, or suzu. This is the flat, tabular stone with a dip in the centre which is used for dissolving and mixing the calligraphy ink. Okamura illustrates the craftsmen carefully shaping the stones and shows the range of shapes they can come in at the end. In the final volume, 'mankind', Okamura focuses on the ink, or sumi. Usually these are bought as solid, dry blocks that the calligrapher dissolves with water to produce the right consistency of ink for writing. Through the illustrations in this volume, we see how physical the process of making these ink blocks is, as the water has to be squeezed out thoroughly to make a concentrated block.
While the books are a practical explanation for how these items are made, they are also Okamura's poetic reflections on the beauty of these objects. This encapsulates the essence of mingei, which emphasises what Yangi Soetsu called 'the beauty of everyday objects'.
Rare. Only one copy in OCLC (National Diet Library).
