Style combination · Contrasts
Japonisme × Rinpa
Japonisme learned Japan mostly from woodblock prints, with keylines and flat colour on paper, though Kōrin reached Louis Gonse and Siegfried Bing in the 1880s through Hōitsu's Kōrin hyakuzu, and Gonse's L'Art japonais (1883) ranked him among the best decorative artists; borrow Rinpa's open gold ground and repeated plant motif to give a Japonist layout more space and shine.
01
What each style brings
Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.
Japonisme Rinpa & Saga-bon
- Type from Rinpa
- Colour from Japonisme
- Form from Japonisme
- Composition from Rinpa
- Surface from Rinpa
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · Rinpa
Reverie
Shippori Mincho, standing in for Saga-bon wooden movable type: flowing hiragana mixed with kanji, cut mostly as single characters but also as linked sorts of two, three and four characters, after a hand in Kōetsu's manner
Text · Japonisme
The Western absorption of Japanese woodblock prints, textiles and crafts after Japan reopened to trade in the 1850s. Artists and designers borrowed ukiyo-e's flat colour, bold contours, off-centre and cropped compositions, high viewpoints and crest-like emblems; these devices dissolved academic perspective and set the visual grammar of the modern poster and of Art Nouveau.
Hanken Grotesk; Japonisme used Auriol and Brush-drawn display lettering imitating Japanese calligraphy
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Japonisme, with a counter-accent from Rinpa. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Japonisme Rinpa & Saga-bon
-
#f1e6cfground · 36% -
#22201eink · 14% -
#c8452caccent · 18% -
#d9b26faccent · 14% -
#1f3f7aaccent · 10% -
#8fa58aaccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #f1e6cf;
--ink: #22201e;
--accent-1: #c8452c;
--accent-2: #d9b26f;
--accent-3: #1f3f7a;
--accent-4: #8fa58a;
--font-display: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
--font-text: "Hanken Grotesk", sans-serif;
}Use it with care
Rinpa & Saga-bon: Poems on Rinpa works and Saga-bon pages are real Japanese texts: have any kana or kanji written or set and checked by a fluent reader, and never fill a design with pseudo-calligraphy as texture. Do not present a generated gold screen as a historical work or as a copy of a named National Treasure. A Kōrin-style plum or wave can be crest-like, but keep it free of any real family's, shrine's or temple's mon.
04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With Japonisme
- Japanese Postwar Modernism Pairs well · Combine Japonisme's cropped figures with postwar Japanese emblem-and-field posters to bridge two centuries of East–West exchange.
- Ma & Wabi-sabi Aesthetics Pairs well · Add wabi-sabi's emptiness and natural texture to push Japonisme's asymmetry toward quieter, more contemplative layouts.
- Flat Design Pairs well · Borrow ukiyo-e cropping and diagonals to make flat vector illustrations feel composed rather than centred and static.
- Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type Contrasts · Against a stacked, many-faced Victorian bill, a single cropped motif in an empty field reads as calm sophistication.
- Simplicissimus Satirical Style (Munich) Pairs well · Heine drew on Japanese woodcuts: add japonisme's cropped asymmetry and silhouetted figures against blank grounds to give a caricature more air and bite.
- Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints Pairs well · Its direct European heir: combine ukiyo-e cropping and flat colour with Western display lettering for a Japonisme poster.
- Tiki Pop (Polynesian Pop) Contrasts · Both are Western absorptions of another culture's art, but Japonisme learned formal lessons (flat colour, cropping, asymmetry) while tiki took the sacred figures themselves as mascots; borrow a way of composing, not a god.
- Victorian Colour Toy Books (Evans, Crane, Caldecott and Greenaway) Pairs well · Crane's flattened planes and outlines owe much to Japanese prints; push the flatness further for a more graphic page.
With Rinpa
- Kamon (Japanese Family Crests) Pairs well · Kōrin patterns reduce a plum or a wave to an emblem much as a mon does; pair a crest-like Rinpa motif with a large open ground for packaging, keeping it free of any real family's crest.
- Art Nouveau Pairs well · Kamisaka Sekka was sent to Glasgow in 1901 and came back influenced by Art Nouveau, which he joined to Rinpa subjects; pair Rinpa's cropped irises and waves with Art Nouveau's floral lettering for a botanical label or poster.
- Ma & Wabi-sabi Aesthetics Contrasts · Both come from Kyoto's tea culture (Kōetsu also made Raku tea bowls), but wabi-sabi wants rough clay and empty paper where Rinpa wants gold leaf and malachite; one bare field can serve either, so choose the material that fills it.
- Japanese Postwar Modernism Pairs well · Tanaka Ikkō drew many 1960s–70s posters from Rinpa and has been called a 20th-century Rinpa artist, and in 2015 ten Japanese graphic designers made Rinpa posters, Hara Kenya's on real gold leaf: add a gold ground and a single cropped seasonal motif to a modernist grid for warmth and seasonality.
- Finnish Bold Print (Marimekko Modernism) Pairs well · Both enlarge a plant motif, crop it at the edge and repeat it across cloth; take Rinpa's metallic ground and pooled colour into a bold printed textile.
- Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho) Contrasts · The Ming/Mincho book letter is upright, separate and set square in a ruled grid; Saga-bon type is flowing kana linked across sorts on decorated paper. Use Mincho for running text and a Saga-bon-like hand for titles and poems.
- Vienna Secession Contrasts · Both set flat figures and pattern on gold, but the Secession locks them into frames and grids while Rinpa leaves the gold open and lets one motif drift across it; decide whether the gold should be a frame or a field.
- Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints Contrasts · Ukiyo-e carves a keyline, prints in editions for the city and depicts actors and courtesans; Rinpa paints pooled colour on gold for a few patrons and depicts plants, waves and birds. Choose between the street print and the gilded screen before settling a Japanese look.