Zuancho is the Japanese name for design books that were used in Kyoto’s textile industry around 1890 to 1940. The word zu-an-cho consists of three Japanese kanji characters: zu – design or drawing, an – idea, cho – book or notebook,
and thus means 'book of design ideas'.
Kimono dealers, their clients, and the craftsmen who dyed, wove, cut, embroidered the textile, and sewed the garments used zuancho to communicate with each other when designing a custom-made kimono. The books themselves were made by skilled artisans who hand-carved designs onto woodblocks, and hand-printed the pages. In the run-up to WWII, the books fell out of use and vanished – until I happened to find a trove of forgotten volumes stored in a warehouse on my family’s century-old estate. With my grandmother’s blessing, I brought them to the United States, where they have come to be viewed as unique works of art. In 2008, I co-curated an exhibition of Zuancho in Kyoto: Textile Design Books for Kimono Trade, at Stanford University, which has started building a collection of Zuancho for its Department of Special Collections.
Zuancho from Mitsui Fine Arts website…
Japanese design books were used for the textile trade during the mid-Meiji period (1868-1912). Textile pattern books (Zuanchō) were printed from hand-carved woodblocks (mokuhanga) by skilled artisans. Customers selected colors and fabric designs from Zuanchō books to order their custom made kimono. This book was created with designs
for children’s kimono.
Mokuhanga and pochoir (stencil) designs were printed on Japanese paper (washi) especially made for printing moku-hanga. I mounted each print on text paper and bound each book by hand. I carve the woodblocks, print each page with mokuhanga and/or combination of mokuhanga and pochoir. This is the first children’s book in a series of my
Zuancho book designs.
This Ancient story is printed on a roll of paper from the Paper Mill Museum in Basel, Switzerland. The story is told using cut out stencil figures, and applying gouache with a stencil brush. The scroll is one continuous paper tied with thin leather.
The designs for my Flag Book were carved and printed as linocuts. Designs and colors inspired me to add quotes about color to the pages. Here are a few of the quotes in this book. The dimensions of this flag book with many color pattern combinations and quotes make it fun to read and hold.
“Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment". Claude Monet
“Arthur Dow taught that line, tone, and color were the fundamental tools of artistic expression and that such expression was itself a legitimate goal for an artist.” Georgia O’Keefe.
“Any color, so long as it's black.” Henry Ford
“Black is not a color.” Edouard Manet.
“When I haven't any blue I use red." Pablo Picasso.
"It isn't easy being green". Kermit the Frog
Rice Crop Circles is a collection of Japanese designs by Carol Brown. Carol printed 5 books with pages printed on hand made green paper circles. Carol met Kristen Kavanaugh when the two artists were members in Women Printmakers in
Austin, Texas. Carol is a printmaker who carves the blocks and prints by hand in the traditional Japanese technique of
moku-hanga, using rice paste, a baren, and watercolors to print the blocks. Kristen makes beautiful hand-made papers in her garage paper making studio. Kristen made the green paper circles and Carol printed the crop circle images on them. A few in this small edition of 5 are printed on various Japanese papers as ‘proofs’ before printingon the hand made green circles.
‘12 Rice Crop Circle Designs’ by Carol.2011