An exquisite presentation of unique sketchbooks by the great Japanese master Hiroshige Ando (1797-1858). While Hiroshige's splendid woodblock prints, in particular his Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido Road, are among the most widely reproduced and best-loved prints in Japanese history, his sketches have rarely been circulated or seen. The sketchbooks date from around 1840 and were created as Hiroshige traveled around Japan. They contain subject matter that ranges from serene landscapes and rural scenes to delightful renderings of interiors, historical figures, and animals. The colours are fresh, the renderings fluid, and the use of space astonishing, allowing a sort of fantasy not always possible in the harder lines of woodblock printing. Most importantly, these drawings are of enormous charm to the eye; even those unacquainted with Japanese art will find them an enchanting example of Japanese colour, design and subject matter. This one-volume edition has been printed in Japan to ensure the highest quality in reproducing the nuances of Hiroshige's masterpieces which are reproduced to size and in their original order.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
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The touch, sensibility, and imagination of the artist are communicated instantly through the extraordinarily faithful reproductions. -- The Christian Science Monitor
About the Author
Sherman E. Lee, is a leading scholar of Far Eastern Art. Director of the Cleveland Museum of Art for twenty-five years, he is currently a consultant to the Asia Society Galleries. He is the author of Past, Present, East aand West, A History of Far Eastern Art and Japanese Decorative Style.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Quiet and beautiful,
By wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (TOP 500 REVIEWER)
This review is from: The Sketchbooks of Hiroshige (Hardcover)
Once you've been captivated by the beauty of Japanese prints, you will surely want to know more about the people and times that created them. This book offers a unique glimpse at the creative process, in the form of fifty watercolor and ink sketches.
The authors have chosen an unusual but comfortable format: sections of the book are printed alternately on white and buff paper. The first section, in white, introduces the collection - a donation to the U.S. Library of Congress. Next, fifty two-page spreads on buff paper present the sketches themselves. If you can't lay hands on Hiroshige's original sketchbooks, this is the next best thing. Toned paper imitates the aging of Hiroshige's sketchpad, now well past 150 years old. It also creates a correct impression of how the ink and colors actually appear, set against that background color. Since the original drawings each spanned the fold of a two-page spread, the reproductions do too - with the book's actual fold in the same place as the original's. Another section of white paper with black printing follows. Each page reproduces one of the drawings, reduced and without color, to remind the reader of what that page's discussion refers to. A second sketchbook follows, on buff paper, and its commentary, in black and white. As you may guess, these high production values carry over into the printing itself - beautiful, delicate, and detailed, so that every nuance of line and shading exposes itself to study. Although helpful, the book's commentary does little more than state the location of a scene or the myth from which an image is drawn. I don't mind that minimalism. The picture draw my eye so forcefuly that it's hard to pay attention to the text. This has my highest recommendation to anyone who loves Japanese prints, or Japanese art in general. -- wiredweird
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Phenomenal collection,
This review is from: The Sketchbooks of Hiroshige (Hardcover)
If you know Japanese art, then you know Hiroshige. Along with Hokusai and Utamaro he created images that are instantly recognizable. In fact, say "Japanese art" to anyone and their mind will probably be populated with scenes from Hiroshige.
But most people have ever only seen his finished works, benefiting from his full powers of design and craftsmanship. Beautiful as it is, the woodblock print does not allow for much spontaneous creativity. Only here in "The Sketchbooks of Hiroshige" do we get a more intimate look at the master's hand, seeing his brushstrokes and soft colors, the kind of sketches that he might have drawn from life, idly sitting on a riverbank watching people at work. The sketchbooks are divided into two volumes, both of which fold out accordion-like in an older style of binding. Both books have twenty-five plates, with some small commentary on the works in the back. In the first volume, there is an introduction to Hiroshige and the collection, although anyone interested in his sketchbooks is probalby already familiar with Hiroshige. The quality of this collection can not be overstated. It is perfect. Every effort was made in presentation, including an antiqued and yellowed paper stock used for the images that is different from the pure white of the introduction and notes. The images themselves are, of course, breathtaking. Each one is subtle and perfectly composed, like a poem in ink. People who only know Hiroshige by his bombastic color prints will be surprised to see this level of restraint. This is definitely a collection for those who just want to look at the art. The comments on each work are very slight, and might even be nothing more than "A scene by the Sumido river". The editor wanted the works to speak for themselves, and rightly so.
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