Chikyu Greetings - Japanese Bookmark - Katsushika Hokusai

Chikyu Greetings - Japanese Bookmark - Katsushika Hokusai

A set of three Japanese-style bookmarks devoted to Katsushika Hokusai, published by Chikyu Greetings. Each piece reproduces one of the master's most celebrated ukiyo-e prints, printed with metallic inks that shift in brightness with the light and finished with a cord at the top end.

In Japan the bookmark — shiori (栞) — is a small everyday object given a degree of care out of all proportion to its size: it is offered as a gift, collected, and changed according to the season or the book being read. These three carry on that tradition, applying to it the most recognisable visual repertoire in Japanese art.

Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) was the great name of Japanese printmaking and one of the figures who most influenced Western art. His series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景), published around 1830–1832, portrays the sacred mountain from different vantage points, seasons and weathers, and produced the images that identify Japan around the world today. When these prints reached Europe in the late nineteenth century they set off the Japonisme craze that left its mark on Monet, on Van Gogh and even on Debussy.

The three designs in the set are the most emblematic pieces of that series:

• The Great Wave off Kanagawa (神奈川沖浪裏), on a gold background: the giant wave with its clawed crests closing over the boats, with a tiny Fuji in the distance. Probably the most reproduced Japanese image in history.
• Red Fuji (凱風快晴), known as Aka-Fuji: the mountain turned red by the light of a late-summer dawn, set against a blue sky with white clouds.
• Storm Below the Summit (山下白雨), or Kuro-Fuji: the same Fuji, this time in dark tones, with red lightning breaking at its base while the peak remains serene.

The finish combines metallic printing with fine detailing that gives each bookmark the look of a gift piece rather than a stationery item. They come mounted on a display card bearing the series design, ready to give as they are.

Perfect as a gift for readers, as a souvenir of Japan, or simply to have a set to alternate between books.

About Chikyu Greetings. Chikyu Greetings, based in Asakusabashi (Tokyo), is a Japanese stationery publisher whose "Chikyu" brand goes back to the Meiji era, around 130 years ago. It specialises in greeting cards and paper goods — envelopes, letter paper, pochibukuro, stickers and Japanese-style bookmarks — with a style the company itself describes as basic, warm designs with a touch of whimsy.