Nihon no hana 日本の花 (Flowers of Japan) - Conceived and Designed by Onchi Kōshirō, 1946

Overview

"Nihon no hana," (Flowers of Japan) a poetry anthology accompanied by illustrations, published in May of 1946, was designed and edited by the pioneering book designer and seminal figure in the creative print (sōsaku hanga) movement, Onchi Kōshirō 恩地孝四郎 (1891-1955), working with the poet Inoue Yasubumi (also Inoue Yasufumi) 井上康文 (1897–1973) to select the anthology's 30 poems. Produced during the second year of the Allied Occupation of Japan (1945-1952), the anthology was part of the effort to revive the Japanese print in a time of economic hardship and Japan's rebuilding of its infrastructure and its image after many years of aggressive war and imperialism, culminating in the US firebombing of Tokyo and the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

For Onchi, "Nihon no hana," was "a beautiful book of the early postwar period."[1] A period when, as Alicia Volk points out in her commentary on the work for the British Museum, "much of the country, including Tokyo where it was printed, remained in ruins following the previous year's aerial bombardments."[2]

Fellow print artists joining Onchi in this endeavor were the well-known Kawakami Sumio 川上澄生 (1895–1972), Kawanishi Hide 川西英 (1894-1965) and Maekawa Senpan 前川千帆 (1888-1960), each of whom contributed a single hand-printed woodblock print, tipped into the book, along with six woodcut illustrations of flowers reproduced by collotype, to accompany the poems. Onchi himself would contribute twelve illustrations and a single poem titled "Cobra Lily." 

The anthology is comprised of the work of thirty contemporary poets, accompanying illustrations, a postscript attributed to Onchi (see transcription and translation below), a table of contents, brief curriculum vitae of the artists and a colophon. Mention of a preface is made by at least one source, but this is a misidentification of the three page poem by Noguchi Yonejirō that opens the book and is transcribed below.

While not present in this collection's book, a separate four page English-language insert titled "Contemporary Japanese Poetry" was included in some copies of the book.[3] 

Each poem's author is identified under their corresponding pages below, as are the print artists whose illustration accompany each poem. 

For additional information on this important work, see Volk's commentary cited below.

Transcription and Translation of the Book's Afterword

Note: The transcription and translation are my own and subject to errors.

The unsigned afterword (巻後に) to "Nihon no hana," almost certainly written by Onchi Kōshirō, "hints at the difficulty of collecting poems and pictures from Japan’s top poets and artists in the wake of the Pacific War, when many still remained in the countryside following evacuation."[1]

現代日本詩より花を主題にしたもの三十篇を集めた。 收載を希つた作家に花の詩が求め得られず。 作を逸したものあるは殘念であつたが、殆どすべての優れた作家の作 を收め得たのは辛である。 日本原産の花のみに限らなかつたのは、異國の花も又󠄂現代日本に就て親しみ深いものがあるからである。之に配󠄃する木版畫、又󠄂現在日本の創作版畫の最高作を收め得て欣快である。 ただ豫定した平󠄁塚運一氏の清麗な版畫を、同氏不在のため得られず急に恩地作を以てするの止むなかつたのは遺憾であつた。 選輯は井上康文、恩地孝四郎二者協議を以て之をなした。

"I have gathered thirty poems with the theme of flowers from modern Japanese poetry. Unfortunately, we could not obtain flower poems from [all] the desired contributors. While it is regrettable that some works were not included, [despite the challenges] we were able to gather works from almost all outstanding writers.

The reason for not limiting it to flowers native to Japan is that there are also foreign flowers that are familiar in modern Japan. It is delightful to include woodblock prints related to this and the finest contemporary Japanese creative prints.

It is unfortunate that, due to the absence of the planned artist Un'ichi Hiratsuka, we had to hastily substituted works by Onchi. It is regrettable that we couldn't obtain the elegant prints by Hiratsuka Un'ichi, as originally planned.

The [poem] selection was made through discussions between Inoue Yasubumi and Onchi Kōshirō."

* Onchi comments in the English language appendix (a four page leaflet) included in some copies of "Nihon no hana": “Cherry-flower is written by Kaoru Maruyama, a poet of the modern type. Though the cherry flower was thought to be a symbol of the Japanese soldier, he, in this poem, points out the languid melancholy of spring.”

Source: Commentary by Motoko Shimizu Lezec, Coordinator at the Gordon W. Prange Collection at the University of Maryland’s Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) https://prangecollection.wordpress.com/2023/03/27/nihon-no-hana/ [accessed 1-11-24]

Book Details