Designs of Kyoto: a collection of design for silk and cotton textiles

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The two volumes of Designs of Kyoto: a collection of designs for silk and cotton textiles (volume 1 and volume 2) were published in 1906 and are available on Internet Archive. I’ve selected 2 sample images from both volumes.

I enjoyed the books – lots of nature themes and ideas for Zentangle patterns. Some of them looked very abstract – geometric – hits of realism. There is a modern quality to many even though they are more than 100 years old. Maybe nature images are timeless as long as the animal/plant depicted still exists in our world.

Silk and cotton are luxuries now – the inexpensive fabrics are synthetic creating a lot of ‘fast fashion’ with interesting fabric patterns….like these.