» Hiroshige, 100 Views of Edo
Rating: 4.5 / 5.00 (6 reviews)
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Manufacturer: Taschen
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Hiroshige, 100 Views of Edo Details
Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 709
EAN: 9783822848272
Format: Illustrated
ISBN: 3822848271
Label: Taschen
Manufacturer: Taschen
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 294
Publication Date: 2008-01-27
Publisher: Taschen
Studio: Taschen
Hiroshige, 100 Views of Edo Reviews
Customer Rating:Summary: A beautiful book!
Comment: This is a beautiful book with beautiful illustrations. I didn't know it when I ordered my copy because it looked like any other book in the picture on-screen, but the book is bound in silk in the traditional Japanese style, and it's then held in a traditional Japanese case which is also covered in silk. It's a heavy book with full size plates and it's a wonderful book just to own and have in your collection. This is one not to be missed because they really don't make many books like this anymore.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A joy to hold and a joy to behold.
Comment: This is a stunning book. From the moment you feel its silk cover, undo the ivory-like closures, unwrap the book from its casing, I had the sense that this was something special and breathtaking. The detail and color of the prints are beautiful. You can see into the images that Hiroshige created right down to his technique.
Taschen produces books that are as brilliantly executed from a production point of view as the body of the book is brilliant from a content point of view.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Uncropped images
Comment: Yes, there are cropped images at the start of this huge and beautiful book to add illustrations to the informative introduction, but the main body of this publication is made up of full size, uncropped excellent reproductions of all 118 of the "100 Views". I give it the full 5 stars for the Japanese style binding, single sided printing and silk effect covered portfolio slipcase... and it's uncropped reproductions.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Superb
Comment: The new Hiroshige tome is wonderful. The colors are bright and the images are focused even including the wood grain from the original woodblock. I have a few of the original prints in my collection and am impressed with the quality of the "new" images. I liked it so much that I gave a copy to friends who also value the artist and genre.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Taschen should be ashamed
Comment: This book has a nice and interesting manufacturing job with lots of very large pictures. However, the real essence of an art book is the pictures. The large images are all drastically cropped. Lost is the meaning given to the prints by their context and composition. In Asian Art the "empty" space is at least as important as the image. The editor of this volume seemed to think that the objective images are the essence. To magnify these he cropped. Bad taste! Being such a heavy book, this was expensive to return. I would be embarrassed to even have it on my book shelf.
More Reviews for Hiroshige, 100 Views of Edo
Editorial Review for Hiroshige, 100 Views of Edo:
Hiroshige's Edo: Masterful ukiyo-e woodblock prints of Tokyo in the mid-19th centuryLiterally meaning "pictures of the floating world", ukiyo-e refers to the famous Japanese woodblock print genre that originated in the 17th century and is practically synonymous with the Western world's visual characterization of Japan. Because they could be mass produced, ukiyo-e works were often used as designs for fans, New Year's greeting cards, single prints, and book illustrations, and traditionally they depicted city life, entertainment, beautiful women, kabuki actors, and landscapes. The influence of ukiyo-e in Europe and the USA, often referred to as Japonisme, can be seen in everything from impressionist painting to today's manga and anime illustration. This reprint is made from one of the finest complete original set of woodprints belonging to the Ota Memorial Museum of Art in Tokyo.
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) was one of the last great artists in the ukiyo-e tradition. Though he captured a variety of subjects, his greatest talent was in creating landscapes of his native Edo (modern-day Tokyo) and his final masterpiece was a series known as "100 Famous Views of Edo" (1856-1858). This resplendent complete reprint pairs each of the 120 large-scale illustrations with a description, allowing readers to plunge themselves into Hiroshige's beautifully vibrant landscapes.
