Tangled Hair みだれ髪

Tangled Hair みだれ髪, Yosano (Otori) Akiko 与謝野晶子, 1901, designed by Fujishima Takeji 藤島武二. A diary-book of 399 tanka poems that were written as a diary of the imagery and inner workings of Yosano’s life during the time of her sexual awakening and courtship with the man who would eventually become her husband. The cover mixes Art Nouveau illustration with expressive lettering, substituting the hiragana “み” with a synonym—the character “三”—to help emphasize the symmetry of the design.

Fujishima Takeji was a leading artist, illustrator, and designer in the period a er Japanese isolation. He was born in Kagoshima Prefecture to a family of former samurai. He studied both nihonga, or Japanese-style painting, and yōga, or Western-style painting with assorted painters including Kawabata Gyokusho 川端玉章 and Yamamoto Hosui 山本芳翠. 

Fujishima became an assistant professor of art at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1896, having been recommended by faculty member Kuroda Seiki 黒田清輝, whose Hakubakai group Fujishima would eventually join. His studies led to him adopting the Art Nouveau style, which he would use to great effect in the cover design for the book Tangled Hair みだれ髪, the debut collection of classical tanka 短歌 poetry by Yosano Akiko 与謝野晶子 in 1901. The book became a runaway bestseller due to its expressions of desire and sexuality, in a time when Japanese society focused on pre-modern women’s roles as mothers, daughters, and wives.