Kuchi-e is a peculiarly Japanese phenomenon; it is a woodblock frontispiece in romance novels and literary magazines published during the final decade of the 19th century and the opening decades of the 20th century.

I have only sampled a few of the novels and have arrived at the conclusion that they constitute a genre within pulp fiction – silly romantic melodramas with absurd plots and heavily spiced with sex and violence. In other words, these were a precursor of daytime television melodramas that attracted a huge, predominantly female audience. However, what saves the kuchi-e from becoming a subject of purely sociological interest is two things: firstly it was at an uncertain time for artists working in Japan and despite their low-brow status, the kuchi-e attracted some of the best woodblock artists of the Meiji Period (1868-1912) as a secure money earner. Secondly, it was at a time when two visual cultures collided – that of traditional Japanese art and recently imported Western modes of visualisation – and in the seams of that collision there are glimpses of a new art.

One could start with a note on nomenclature – kuchi-e literally means "mouth", possibly with the idea of a frontispiece as an opening for a book. Kuchi-e has a secondary popular slang meaning – vagina – which may not be inappropriate for the gutter literature that these prints illustrated. The main subject of these illustrations is "bijin" (beautiful women) with all of the romanticised idealisation that runs throughout the history of the Ukiyo-e, but now sometimes shown with the emerging ideal of the modern Japanese woman. The desperate Meiji housewives absorbed a diet of romantic intrigue, naughty sex and bloody retribution packaged in bold striking visual forms.

The National Library of Australia, partly through a significant donation from a Sydney-based academic and collector, Emeritus Professor Richard Clough, has assembled one of the great collections of the kuchi-e prints, books and magazines in the world. This is a pioneering exhibition that assembles about 150 of these prints by about 25 artists. The books themselves were not rare and tens of thousands of kuchi-e were published in Japan monthly. They were in retrospect frequently viewed as hybrids, and collectors were more attracted to the alleged "purity" of the Ukiyo-e art.

The Meiji Period was one of humiliation for Japan, where the West imposed crippling and unfair conditions on trade, and the undercurrent in popular Japanese culture was a stringent nationalism, where the tastemakers clung on to a national tradition. Helen Merritt and Nanako Yamada in their monographic study of the kuchi-e prints observed a certain hybridity where the traditional Japanese forms seem to possess a little more corporeality as in Western art, but retain their traditional Japanese outlines. The inks used in the printing were frequently the cheaper synthetic western imports, but the colour range remained traditional.

Eisen Tomioka's Tsuma no kokoro (A wife's heart), 1901, is a fairly typical woodblock print from this prolific and immensely popular artist who in his short life had a brilliant career. Many of his images are closely related and play with the idea of "ryosai kenbo" (good wife, wise mother) and the surrounding temptations. Kuchi-e prints were employed to consolidate patriotism and in a number of Eisen Tomioka's prints the beautiful woman is juxtaposed with a "thought bubble" containing the suited image of the man she loves. There is an effective but coarse simplicity in the compositions from the dominating image of the woman, the lightshade in the foreground and the kettle shown in miniature in the background.

Keishu Takeuchi was prolific, successful and was blessed with longevity. His Gekka no bijin (Beauty under the moon), 1896 was produced as a frontispiece to a literary magazine, Bungei kurabu, of which he was the art editor and, as is not infrequent, the image is not associated with any specific text. There is a sensuous yet solemn beauty that is forever unattainable.

Kodo Yamanaka, Keishu's contemporary, also printed his Hotaru (Firefly), 1913, as a frontispiece for Bungei kurabu and it is also apparently not related to a specific text. A coy and seductive bijin passes by in the night with an emblematic firefly appearing haloed by the moon.

Keishu Takeuchi's Akatsuki (Dawn) 1912 was also created as a frontispiece for the same literary magazine and was apparently related to the novel Dawn. It is a somewhat eerie and enigmatic image where a beautiful young woman is absorbed in reading a letter by the light of an oil lamp on which sits a mouse that appears to be intently peering into that letter. It is quite a disturbing image with just a touch of the weird and uncanny.

Melodrama in Meiji Japan may not be an exhibition of great art, with much that is overstated, sentimental and absurd, but it does present a unique insight into the psyche of Japan. In an age where so many countries are struggling to reassert their national identities, there is something quite timely about this exhibition.