Edo Period Pins and Buttons

For japanese culture lovers

This is the kamon of the famous Takeda clan from the Sengoku period. The most famous Takeda member is Takeda Shingen who fought in the Battles of Kawanakajima against Uesugi Kenshin. The mon is an emblem to designate a family, clan or even an organization. The kamon is used specifically to identify a family. The mon is similar to the coat of arms from European heraldic tradition. Although, there is a big difference, the mon stays clean and minimalistic in design. European crests tend to get very complicated by combining other family crests over the generations. Mon and Kamon are usually designed using a roundel containing a abstracted, stylized image of an object. This object can be a plant, an animal, a tool, or anything you fa...

Matsumoto Hoji, Japanese, active c. 1785. This portly toad, bursting beyond the confines of the scroll's edges, belongs to a category of Japanese painting known as Zenga, or "Zen picture." For Zen monks, painting provided a medium to express their own Zen experience and pleasure. Edo Period.

Breathtaking Ukiyo-e Japanese Fantasy Dragon. Very detailed.

Asian Art Series Owl

Kabuki Actor Otani Oniji III as Yakko Edobei in the Play "The Colored Reins of a Loving Wife" by Toshusai Sharaku, 1794.

Embrace the spirit of Hokusai's iconic masterpiece with waves cascading in rhythmic patterns, capturing the essence of 'Under the Wave off Kanagawa' in a fresh light.

Tokugawa Crest white distressed effect illustration

This hand-carved block print of a frog is based off a woodblock print from the Edo era in Japan. Teisai Hokuba created the original, much larger woodblock depicting animals at a party. I isolated a small portion of the image showing just the frog and what looks to be a sake bottle and recreated it as a block carving which I then printed before scanning.