Kamon

Imperial Seal of Japan, the mon of the Japanese Imperial family, a 16 petal chysanthemum with a second set of petals visible behind.

Mon are Japanese heraldic symbols. Kamon refer specifically to family symbols or crests. They serve much the same purpose as European heraldic devices. Sarah's tattoo and our recent use of the Mukai family crest for invitations led me to research Japanese crests. Much assistance was provided by John Dower's study, The Elements of Japanese Design: A Handbook of Family Crests, Heraldry & Symbolism (1971).

Mon have their roots in Japan through the transmission of the Chinese culture of the T'ang Dynasty (618-907) to the Japanese court. Chinese emblems of the Sun and Moon, Blue Dragon, White Tiger and Three-legged Crow were symbols of the early Japanese sovereigns.

The rise of the samurai class and feudal society produced an increase in the use of heraldic devices. The Gempei War (1180-85) involved two factions, the Minamoto, who fought under banners of white, and the Taira, under red. The battles of the Gempei War were scattered and formalistic, fought by small, swift bands of warriors. The use of mon was rare at this time. The scale of warfare expanded following the Gempei War, and with the increase in the number of combatants came a rise in the use of mon. Dower concludes that the "predominant simplicity of the earliest warrior crests reflects the military concern which motivated their adoption; most were plain geometric forms and simple representational figures."The Hojo clan's three-triangle fish scale emblem [above] and the Ashikaga clan's geometric pattern [below] are representative of this period.

Initially, heraldic emblems were used as a common symbol of identification by all followers of a specific clan. As Dower notes, by the mid-1300s "the use of crests was so well established throughout Japan that the authors of the Taiheiki [a Japanese historical epic] could describe the forces which made up an army just by listing the markings on their banners". Increasing their popularity were the elaboration of crest designs, the enhancing of previously simple crests, and the adoption of a number of crests for different occasions, for instance, retaining one crest for battle and another for the court. These trends parallel increased contact between the court, and its fashionable aesthetics, and the samurai class.

Minamoto clan gentian crest [above] and Taira clan butterfly crest [below].

Around the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth crests mon began to be associated with individual family units. The rise of kamon was accelerated by the adoption of a rule of primogeniture for the inheritance of an estate, which forced younger sons to form independent families of their own, often taking a new surname in the process. The Minamoto clan contained 4 subclans, 27 major branches and 569 different surnames by the end of the feudal period. Common clan emblems no longer served to delineate such numbers accurately. New variations on crests were created to represent newly independent families.




The crests of the three "great unifiers" of Japan, in descending order: Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582); Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598); and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616). Oda's crest is a China flower, a Chinese design not based on any specific flower, enclosed by a court pattern dating back to T'ang China. Toyotomi's crest is a paulownia flower pattern. The most popular design of all Japanese mon, the paulownia is considered an emblem of the imperial throne, and was bestowed upon Toyotomi by the imperial court. According to Chinese legend, the phoenix, bird of immortality, alights only in the branches of the paulownia when it returns to earth. The design is now a symbol of the Office of the Prime Minister of Japan. Tokugawa's crest is the hollyhock, a plant associated with a presitigious Kyoto shrine.

Wood sorrel mon

During the Tokugawa shogunate, the use of mon spread from the samurai and warrior classes to the peasant and merchant classes, and to the artisans, Kabuki actors and courtesans of the floating world of the Edo period. Crests became a common element of all classes. Hank Mukai tells me the Mukai kamon was selected primarily for its form. The crest is composed of a trifoliate clover-like wood sorrel leaf with three stylised sword blades inserted between each of the leaves and three blades penetrating from the leaf stem. The crest is similar to the above wood sorrel mon. The wood sorrel (katabami) produces many seeds and reproduces vigorously; this characteristic was seen as a token of future proliferation and prosperity. The wood sorrel is also known as the mirror plant (kagamigusa). It was used for polishing bronze mirrors, as well as forming a medicinal salve. The wood sorrel mon enjoyed much popularity among the samurai class.

Acme Novelty Library

Acme Novelty Library, issue 17, pre production and final cover.

I came across the work of Chris Ware this year. He is a comic book artist and graphic novelist, from Oak Park, Chicago, with a love for the early 20th Century aesthetic movements of Art Nouveau and Art Deco. He has won numerous awards for his work. He is especially known for his Acme Novelty Library, a series of issues published since 1993, with the 19th issue released in 2008. The series features a number of Ware's characters, Big Tex, Rocket Sam, Quimby the Mouse, and the central characters of two graphic novels serialised in Acme Novelty Library, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, and Rusty Brown.

New Yorker Thanksgiving cover, 2006.

I encountered Ware via The Acme Novelty Library Final Report to Shareholders and Rainy Day Saturday Afternoon Fun Book (2005), a collection of issues 7 and 15 with extra material. The book's graphic content wowed me, the intricate detail in the draftsmanship, the fine lettering and stylised art. The melancholy mood of Ware's creation also grabbed my attention. His work has been described as "the wry, surreal satire of the anachronistic unipolar depressive: desperately funny, profoundly sad and nightmarish all at once." The story line of Rusty Brown amplifies these attributes, magnifying the character's alienation and sense of depressed loneliness. There is a contemplative nature to his art: this isn't Batman, kids. It is at once reflective and stimulating.


What initially caught my attention was Ware's parodying of classic American comic book advertisments, selling the Charles Atlas body for the wimpy teenager getting sand kicked in his face. Ware takes the marketing ideals of Superpower USA and subverts them, casting light on the darker side of his nation, its fast food culture and hegemonic foreign policies. His ideas are laugh out loud funny, but not typical Adam Sandler gut reactions. You laugh with your brain and your aching heart. And you have to read the small print.


Ware has completed a new series featured in issues of Acme Novelty Library, The New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine called "Building Stories". This series, according to the critics, pushes at the boundaries of the comics medium, re-imagining new ways to tell visual stories. In Building Stories a "mix of architecture, narrative comic panels, and informative diagram connects the residents of a 4-story building to their apartments, each other, their pasts, the flowers, and even a family of bees."
For those who enjoy art and reading, I recommend Chris Ware with one reservation. His characters are generally not happy people. Don't go looking for inspiration from them. Admire their resilience, and the fineness of their surroundings, and perhaps begin by dipping into The Acme Novelty Library Final Report to Shareholders and Rainy Day Saturday Afternoon Fun Book.

All images are, naturally, the copyright of Chris Ware.