Japan Journeys: Famous Woodblock Prints of Cultural Sights in Japan

Armchair travel may not be as exciting as the real thing, but it's the only way to visit the marvelous landscape of Japan in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. And the best way to do it is through the medium of Japanese woodblock prints. Tuttle Publishing, which has an extensive list of books on all things Japanese, has brought out a charming tome of woodblock prints of sights both human-made and natural. Marks is head of the Japanese and Korean Art Department at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and his erudition shines through the volume's introduction and the clear commentary on individual prints. Although familiar 19th-century artists such as Hiroshige and Hokusai are represented by famous works, lesser-known 20th-century printmakers Yoshikawa Kanpo, Kawase Hasui, and Yoshida Hiroshi present another side of Japanese culture. Image quality is superb, but the book's small (8" × 8") format sometimes reduces the prints to baseball card proportions. Nineteen of the images are enlarged to show details, and they are all displayed in full at the end so that each artist's composition can be appreciated.