Customer Reviews

Japanese Kite Prints: Selections from the Skinner Collection

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Flying kites was a part of the traditional culture of the major Japanese city of Edo (present-day Tokyo). Also a center for traditional Japanese printmaking, it was natural that kites and kite-flying would often be depicted on prints. Stevenson, who has spent much time in Asia, treats the intertwined subjects of kites and prints with a historical overview that includes frequent discussions of particular kites and prints. "These kites [depicted in a print] must be large: the kite the young men are flying requires two to control the line, with a third looping the line into a basket." Besides depicting ceremonial or recreational kite-flying, prints could also use kites symbolically, as when one artist suggests that confetti falling from a kite could be seeds being scattered over a field by farmers hoping for a good harvest. Such symbolisms indicate the meaningful place held by kites in the culture, almost as if they were religious or ritualistic objects. Stevenson's narrative and analyses for newcomers to the subject or advanced students complemented by colorful prints and details of them, including a number of large fold-outs, brings this somewhat specialized subject to life. With the author's special interest in kites as a part of Asian culture and his many years living in Asia, the subject seems second nature to him. He writes about it both naturally and knowledgeably, as if one were listening to an absorbing lecturer.