Japanese Art Nouveau Postcards

I came across this small collection of postcards for sale and was just amazed at some of the beautiful Art Nouveau Japanese images it featured... just the sense of design, color and composition all are things that caught my eye.

more links:
Art of the Japanese Postcard: MFA Boston
Curved line aesthetic in Japanese art
Assorted images

Umbrellas Viewed from Above
Takehisa Yumeji 

Female Nude Seated in Water
1906, by Ichijô Narumi

 Ducks Swimming Upstream

Uzaki Sumikazi

Woman with Umbrella
Ichijo Narumi

Peacock on a Wall

Wada Eisaku

Kay Nielsen

Kay Nielsen is another Golden Age Illustrator who did gorgeous fairy tale illustrations in the first part of the 20th century.

I love his drawings for a lot of the same reasons that I like Dulac (content, colors, and Art Nouveau style), but Nielsen brings in a slightly more Asian aesthetic- he was apparently influenced by Japanese woodprints and Hiroshige.

Asifa-Hollywood archives has some great scans of a variety of his work
Twelve Dancing Princesses
East of the Sun West of the Moon
Hansel and Gretel

Edmund Dulac

I'm a huge fan of fairy tales and especially of the "Golden Age" of illustration, and Edmund Dulac is up there as one of my favorites.

I love the colors, lines, composition (love the simple way of blocking out fields of color) and subject matter (I'm a sucker for fairy tales). I really dig the influences of Pre-Raphealite techniques and Art Nouveau / Arts and Crafts design as well.

Images from Edmund Dulac Art Images (which include prints for sale)

Additional images can be found at Asifa-Hollywood animation archives