Twenty-two pictures of flowers and (or) birds drawn by two artists – Chinzan Tsubaki (1801-1854) and Kazan Watanabe (1793-1841) – were included in a woodblock-printed picture book entitled Shogafu (i.e., Album of Calligraphy and Paintings). It was edited by Kiyosaku Furusawa and published in 1882. These twenty-two pictures are shown here. Click on a picture to enlarge it. Both Chinzan and Kazan used a boneless drawing style (i.e., objects without a black outline) that was imported to Japan from China. Its objective was to capture the spirit of the objects depicted rather than their external features. Consequently, it can be a challenge to identify the objects depicted, especially the birds.

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