Pictorial Designs for All Artisans (Banshoku zukō 万職図考) Possibly 1850 - 1851

This open book, *Pictorial Designs for All Artisans,* was made by Katsushika Hokusai in Japan. It’s a woodblock print; the designs were carved into wood, inked, and then pressed onto paper. You can see this process at work in the crisp lines and flat blocks of color. The designs here are for sword guards, known as *tsuba*. Hokusai was working within a well-established tradition, but he pushed the boundaries. Sword guards were typically made of metal, and carefully wrought by skilled metalworkers. Here, Hokusai translates the form into the realm of printmaking. Notice how he has adapted motifs like dragons and seahorses. These would have been painstakingly carved into the woodblock. Through this relatively inexpensive medium, Hokusai made designs accessible to a wider audience. The book became a pattern book, enabling artisans to create objects that reflected Hokusai's artistry. This challenges our assumptions about the relationship between art, craft, and commerce. It also reminds us that artists often work in close collaboration with skilled makers, their work deeply embedded in a social context.