The Sketchbooks of Hiroshige

by Sherman E. Lee, Hiroshige Andō, Hiroshige

These delightful pencil, ink, and watercolor drawings by the great Japanese master Hiroshige Ando range from everyday scenes of a worker in a rice field stopping to smoke or fishing boats at work, to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807614998
• ISBN13: 9780807614990
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: George Braziller
• Length: 175 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.8"

Customer Reviews

Phenomenal collection

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.

Quiet and beautiful

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