Japan Journeys: Famous Woodblock Prints of Cultural Sites in Japan

Art historian Marks (Japanese Woodblock Prints) shows off an impressive selection of nearly 200 Japanese woodblock prints in this elegant four-color album. Drawn mainly from the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (where the author heads the Japanese and Korean Art department) and the Honolulu Museum of Art, the prints capture the era following the mass arrival of Westerners in Japan in the mid-19th century. Opening with a short essay about how local pilgrimages explain the Japanese appetite for domestic travel, Marks organizes the prints by location, with chapters on sights in and around Tokyo, Kyoto, and other regions in Japan. Works by famous printmakers Katsushika Hokusai and the prolific Utagawa Hiroshige are well represented, including classic scenes of Mount Fuji and the ubiquitous “Great Wave.” Lesser-known 20th-century artists depict scenes from the 1940s with a modern sensibility, such as stark images of Tokyo Station with a paper lantern in the foreground. In some cases, details of the prints are reproduced in the main part of the book, with full versions of the images included at the end. The text is sparse but provides some historical context while allowing the images to tell the story of Japan in its many moods and seasons. (Apr.)