The Japanese word for fireworks is 'Hanabi', which translates as 'fire flowers', a far more suitable name, and here is a book full of them! This is a high quality reproduction of the 1883 Hirayama Fireworks Company Illustrated Catalogue.
In 1877, the entrepreneurial pryo-technician Jinta Hirayama founded The Hirayama Fireworks Company in Yokohama, Japan. Japanese fireworks at the time mostly emitted only subdued orange hues, but the innovative Hirayama became one of the first to incorporate a brighter array of colours and patterns.
This book is a reproduction of Hirayama's 1883 firework catalogue, a booklet created to promote his work to customers, allowing them to choose their preferred pyrotechnics and follow the instructions for use. Creating multi coloured fireworks and effects in the nineteenth century was one challenge, another was how to visually represent exploding fireworks on paper. Hirayama delivered and the results are these timeless graphic illustrations.
86 luminous illustrations, geometric and elegant, rigorous and surprising, which evoke the brilliance and magnificence of the fireworks as they appear in the sky at night. A superb restored reproduction of the original catalogue and a great work of graphic illustration.
NOTE: The books and text is in Italian, but the book is mostly, and all about, the amazing images, so it's all good!
96 page paperback, 4.75 x 7 inches, published by Lazy Dog Press.
