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Digital Database of Nara Ehon Around the World is an open digital
archive which makes available works of Nara ehon ("Nara picture books"),
short illustrated narrative manuscripts produced during the Muromachi to
Edo periods, in collections from all over the world.
In terms of format, Nara ehon may be grouped into three categories of
horizontal books, vertical books, and large vertical books. While the
bindings of the manuscripts also vary, the most common are ones with
navy blue covers with designs of autumn grasses in gold pigment and
attached with vermillion title slips that were sometimes called
yomeiri-bon ("trousseau books"). The illustrations, provided on a single
page or as a spread, may generally be grouped to those either executed
in the so-called "Nara-e style" using inexpensive opaque pigment
(doroenogu) or in a more delicately rendered luxurious style. Both
styles employ the standardized composition of framing the top and bottom
of the pictorial surface with trailing mist (suyari-gasumi). Vivid
colors such as vermillion and green are combined with lavish uses of
gold and silver foils and pigments in Nara ehon, not unlike miniatures.
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question
Professor. Toru Ishikawa naraehon@humi.keio.ac.jp