Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, actually composed of 118 splendid woodblock landscape and genre scenes of midnineteenth century Tokyo, is one of the greatest achievements of Japanese art. The sereies, reproduced from an exceptionally fine, first-edition set in the Brooklyn Museum of Art, contains many of Hiroshige's best-loved and most extraordinary prints. Each plate is accompanied by a commentary that discusses its artistic and cultural interest in detail. A celebration of the style and world of Japan's finest cultural flowering at the end of the shogunate.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Besides being the catalog of a marvelous exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Hiroshige: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo is the definitive study of the last series of landscapes produced by the Japanese woodblock-print artist Ando Hiroshige (1797-1858). These designs of Edo, or modern Tokyo, are among the most familiar images of Japanese art in the world: copies were printed by the thousands until the wooden blocks wore out. The Brooklyn Museum's set is of the highest quality, early impressions with extraordinarily skilful and subtle use of printing techniques, especially color gradation. Each of the designs, which ultimately numbered 118, is shown in the book full-size with a long caption on the facing page. The author's descriptions, impeccably researched, take us on a guided tour of the old city. Many of the locations are shown at festival time and demonstrate the richness of daily life and customs in premodern Japan.
A notable feature of the series is its use of what we would now call cinematic effects: abrupt framing that cuts a figure in half, or extreme juxtapositions of near and distant elements. Examples include an "aerial" view of the environs of Edo dominated by a close-up image of an eagle, and a study of the Horikiri iris gardens in which sightseers are seen through stalks that seem only inches away. Such imaginative and daring effects must have startled contemporaries. Sudden Shower at Ohashi Bridge uses slashing lines to indicate rain--it was copied in oils by van Gogh, who, like several other impressionist painters including Monet, was the proud owner of many Japanese prints. Hiroshige is a beautifully produced book; with individual designs of the series costing tens of thousands of dollars; owning a copy is a consolation for not owning the prints themselves. --John Stevenson
Review
"Henry Smith skillfully and sensitively describes the images... and offers rewarding insights on the interchange between the larger tradition of the Japanese woodblock and Hiroshige's singular creative talent" Art in America
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83 of 89 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bridging the gap between Edo and Tokyo.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Hiroshige: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Hardcover)
Darcy Kishida (midk@crisscross.com)
Anyone who has ever visited modern Tokyo knows what a dreary and uninviting place it can be. Monotonous rows of offices, apartments with no charm whatsoever, and a shocking lack of architectural originality conspire to rob the metropolis of most of the character it once had. "One Hundred Famous Views Of Edo" will, if not completely change your opinion of Tokyo, at least make you see the city in a new light, enabling the reader to look past the run down buildings and aging neon and view the city as it used to be: an enchanting place virtually untouched by foreign influences and filled with ancient shrines, women in kimono, swaggering samurai, Kabuki theaters, the pleasure quarters, and everything else we associate with old Japan. It will also, if you're not already, make you fall in love with the art of ukiyo-e.
"One Hundred Famous Views Of Edo" succeeds in two ways. First, from a purely artistic point of view, it is a stunning collection of all 118 prints in Hiroshige's "Meisho Edo Hyakkei" series (One Hundred Famous Views Of Edo), full-size and faithfully reproduced from the Brooklyn Museum's high quality set of mostly first edition prints. The book is unique in that it includes, in addition to the acknowledged masterpieces such as "Plum Estate, Kameido" and "Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake," many inferior prints which are rarely, if ever, seen. Here though, every print, even the obscure ones, is given its own commentary. Henry D. Smith II, a professor of Japanese history at Columbia University, wrote the commentaries accompanying the plates and explains in his introduction that only focusing on the stronger designs "discourages the appreciation of the many strong features of the lesser designs, and it also distracts attention from the descriptive qualities that clearly appealed to Hiroshige's audience and that can teach us much today about the city of Edo and its culture."
Also significant is the fact that "One Hundred Famous Views Of Edo" shows us the series as it was meant to be seen. Those who are familiar with Hiroshige already know that this was his last series and it was enormously popular. As was the case with most ukiyo-e prints, the first edition copies were generally of the highest quality, with sharp, clear lines and delicately graded colors. In later printings, which are comparatively plentiful, a sharp drop in the subtlety of color becomes obvious and the once clean lines begin to blur. The majority of the prints from the Brooklyn Museum fall into the former category. As Professor Smith notes, the great success of the series "led to countless later impressions of far inferior quality, eliminating the most refined printing effects and transforming the color schemes in ways that utterly destroyed the expressive intent of the first impressions." Even to the untrained eye, a side-by-side comparison between a high quality, early impression and a hastily made later one will quickly make this clear. Any ukiyo-e connoisseur will tell you that there is really nothing else like a well-preserved, first edition copy of a favorite print and these are in abundance in "One Hundred Famous Views Of Edo".
As impressive as the prints are, however, the commentary is what steals the show here, giving the reader fascinating glimpses into what was the city of Edo and its inhabitants. It has the effect of turning the prints into virtual postcards, which, in the absence of Edo era photographs, serve as a precious visual record of the city and its customs. In his commentary, Smith has the uncanny ability to make even the most mundane details fascinating. Mediocre plates, which would normally hold your attention for only a few seconds at most, are given substance and life by Smith, whose keen eye and attention to detail turn these lesser designs into mini history lessons, travel guides, or short biographies. A good example is plate 70 (Nakagawa River Mouth), which, artistically, this writer considers among the worst of the series. Here were are given a short history of Edo's canal system, learn where its citizens procured their salt, and discover how the scene has changed in the last 150 years. The print is thus saved from obscurity by, ironically, acting as a sort of visual supplement to Smith's text instead of the other way around.
The amazing variety of the locations and subject matter of the 118 views and their astute commentary combine to bring Edo alive for the viewer, making it seem strangely familiar and real. We regret the loss of so many beautiful places to modernization and cherish the few precious gems that remain. "One Hundred Famous Views Of Edo" will make those who have never been to Tokyo want to go and former residents want to return for a visit. As for the fortunate who live there now, this book can only increase their appreciation of the city and its unique history.
39 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely magnificent.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Hiroshige: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Hardcover)
In college I met one of the sons of George Braziler, the publisher, and feel that the wonderful quality of their art books reflects the generous and thoughtful nature of their family. The prints are meticulously reproduced, complete with woodgrain. The written text takes the reader back to another time within a totally different culture with subtle details explained. More generally, Japanese prints represent an effort to provide art to the normal working people, not just wealthy aristocrats. Hiroshige memorializes the exquisite and delicate mood of ancient Japan and lets you feel their experiences.
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A spectacular achievement,
By wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (TOP 500 REVIEWER)
This review is from: Hiroshige: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Hardcover)
This huge and beautiful book is an achievement in itself, but I really meant Hiroshige's original cycle of prints, 118 in all. They cover every aspect of the bustling city: summer and snow, crowds and quiet, industrial sectors, temples, and pleasure quarters. In some, the city's people are clearly the focus of attention. In others, they are implicit and unseen. Even when birds, exotic trees, or vast landscapes dominate, the human presence remains. This is about the city, after all, and the city is always there.
Hiroshige's composition displays distinctive layering. His strong, immediate foregrounds place the viewer directly in the scene, then lead the viewer inward and onward to skies and mountains in the distance. It's dramatic and engaging, and striking by its absence in the very few images composed by his successor. Japanese prints are hugely more complex and subtle than nearly anything in the Western canon. These masterworks are built up from images on a dozen or more blocks, perfectly aligned on the printed sheet of paper. That comes through beautifully in these large reproductions, even in the subtleties of "bokashi" gradients of color. Even so, the commentary reminds us of how much we're missing. The originals are often overprinted in lustrous mica, in glossy inks that emphasizes an eagle's claws, and in un-inked embossing or "cloth printing." Between the dramatic printing in these reproductions and the authors' description, we get nearly the whole effect of the imagery anyway. I recommend this book to any reader, whether a connoisseur of fine prints already or some who can learn to love them - in otherwords, to everyone. //wiredweird
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