Customer Reviews

The Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaido

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This oversize book features 70 uncropped, color reproductions of early prints from this collection originally published in the first half of the 19th century. Eisen started the drawings of each station along the the road through central Japan but he left the project after making 24 prints and Hiroshige replaced him. The prints are all horizontal so the book is bound on the short side to maximize the size of the prints. They are printed on a cream colored matte paper so the pages closely match the original prints. Each print is reproduced full page with text on the facing page. This book resembles the earlier George Braziller publication Hiroshige: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. The introductory text includes a map showing the location of each station and brief background information on each artist and the original publication. The book is nicely bound and includes a heavy plastic slip cover. I cannot find anything to dislike about this book except a small typo on page 12. I highly recommend this book to anyone who appreciates Japanese woodblock prints.

The Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaido reproduces artworks from the best-condition surviving editions of a rare manuscript, giving Western audiences the first ever glimpse of these fascinating historical portraits of daily life in nineteenth century Japan. Art of beggars, brawling men, boaters, women in fine garments, castles, sprawling cities, green-sloped hills and much more grace the pages, enhanced by thoughtful analysis and commentary of each. A wondrous showcase of traditional Japanese art, highly recommended especially for collectors.

Here we get a collection of mostly Hiroshige prints from an old postal route. I love Hiroshige because I loved Tintin as a child. Herge stole brutally from Hiroshige, which makes these prints so likeable to me.

Five stars for the prints and three stars for the book and two for value for money. The size of the book is too small to make the prints justice. It does a decent job, but it is in no way close to Hiroshige, 100 Views of Edo in production quality. If you only buy one book of Hiroshige, do yourself a favour and pay USD 95 for that book instead of USD 70 for this.

Informative, authoritative with excellent reproductions of prints. For any fan of Japanese prints this large format book is essential.

A very useful reference, informative and knowledgeable descriptions of the prints with high quality reproductions.