Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) is one of the best known of all Japanese woodblock print designers. He is particularly renowned for his landscape prints, which are among the most frequently reproduced of all Japanese works of art. Hiroshige's landscape prints were hugely successful both in Japan and in the West. Their unusual compositions, humorous depictions of people involved in everyday activities and masterly expression of weather, light and seasons, proved enormously influential on many leading European artists. Aimed at a general audience, this book illustrates and discusses 53 Hiroshige landscape prints in the Ashmolean Museum's collection and explores their historical background. It gives a concise introduction to Hiroshige's life and career within the context of Japan's booming nineteenth-century woodblock print industry and explores the development of the landscape print as a new genre in this period. It also discusses and illustrates the process and techniques of traditional Japanese woodblock print-making. Contents: How to 'read' a Japanese Print, Preface, Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) Woodblock Print Designer, Making a Japanese Woodblock Print, I Views along the Tokaido, II Views of the Provinces, III Views of Edo, IV Views of Mount Fuji, Further Reading.

This beautifully designed book is a celebration of one of the world's most creative, dynamic and fascinating cities: Tokyo. It spans 400 years, with highlights including Kano school paintings; the iconic woodblock prints of Hiroshige; Tokyo Pop Art posters; the photography of Moriyama Daido and Ninagawa Mika; manga; film; and contemporary art by Murakami Takashi and Aida Makoto. Visually bold and richly detailed, this publication looks at a city which has undergone constant destruction and renewal and it tells the stories of the people who have made Tokyo so famous with their insatiable appetite for the new and innovative - from the samurai to avantgarde artists today. Co-edited by Japanese art specialists and curators Lena Fritsch and Clare Pollard from Oxford University, this accessible volume features 28 texts by international experts of Japanese culture, as well as original statements by influential artists.

Exquisite depictions of romantically idealized landscapes from woodcut master's superb Fifty-three Stages on the Tokaido. Reproduced from the Collection of the Elvehjem Museum of Art. Includes The Bridge on the Toyo River, The Ferryboat at Rokugo, The Junction of the Pilgrims' Road and Mt. Fuji in the Morning from Hara.

The Japanese landscape print has had a tremendous influence on Western art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In Japan and in the West it is often seen as the dominant form in Ukiyo-e, pictures from the floating world. And yet for all its importance, it is a genre whose history has never been written. Beyond The Great Wave is a survey or overview for all those interested in discovering the inner dynamics of one of art history's most remarkable achievements. However, it is also a quest narrative, in which landscapes and notions of Japan as a homeland are intertwined and interconnected. Although there has never been a book-length study of the Japanese landscape print in either Japanese or English, a great deal has been written about the two giants of the genre, Hokusai and Hiroshige. From what traditions did these two nineteenth-century artists emerge? Who were their predecessors? What influence, if any, did they have on other Ukiyo-e artists? Can their influence be seen in the shin-hanga and sôsaku-hanga artists of the twentieth century? This book addresses these issues, but it also looks at a number of other factors, such as the growth of tourism in nineteenth-century Japan, necessary for understanding this genre.

This is the first book in a European language to make a comprehensive study of the life and works of the astonishingly versatile and accomplished Meiji potter, Makuzu Kozan (1842 - 1916), who was acclaimed as one of the greatest ceramic artists of the Meiji period.The Meiji period, after the opening of Japan to the West in the mid-nineteenth century, was a time of momentous change for Japanese society and Kozan's Makuzu workshop makes an ideal case study to examine the effects of these changes on the Japanese ceramic industry. This book tells the story ofKozan's Makuzu wares from their origins in a traditional workshop in Kyoto to their maturity in a prolific factory in the newly-opened port of Yokohama, where Kozan's ability to cater to the demands of a new Western export market and to incorporate new Western glaze techniques led to enormoussuccess, both in Japan and abroad at the international exhibitions that flourished from the 1850s.Lavish illustrations highlight Kozan's remarkable and technical and artistic achievements, while ceramic marks and box inscriptions are analysed as a practical guide to dating Makuzu ware. Clare Pollard discusses the role of later generations of the Miyagawa family in the running of the workshop andrelates developments in Makuzu ware to the work of other major potters of the era, both in Japan and in Europe and America.Incorporating contemporary sources (including previously unstudied archival material from the Makuzu workshop itself), recent research and the study of a large corpus of Makuzu wares in museums and private collections all over the world, the book examines the artistic, political, and commercialfactors that influenced Kozan and his contemporaries as they strove to come to terms with shifting life-styles and changing attitudes to the arts, and moved towards the creation of a modern ceramic industry.

Kyoto was Japan’s political and cultural capital for more than a millennium before the dawn of the modern era. Until about the fifteenth century, it was also among the world’s largest cities and, as the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, it was a place where the political, artistic, and religious currents of Asia coalesced and flourished. Despite these and many other traits that make Kyoto a place of both Japanese and world historical significance, the physical appearance of the premodern city remains largely unknown. Through a synthesis of textual, pictorial, and archeological sources, this work attempts to shed light on Kyoto’s premodern urban landscape with the aim of opening up new ways of thinking about key aspects of premodern Japanese history. The book begins with an examination of Kyoto’s highly idealized urban plan (adapted from Chinese models in the eighth century) and the reasons behind its eventual failure. The formation of the suburbs of Kamigyō and Shimogyō is compared to the creation of large exurban temple-palace complexes by retired emperors from the late eleventh century. Each, it is argued, was a material manifestation of the advancement of privatized power that inspired a medieval discourse aimed at excluding “outsiders.” By examining this discourse, a case is made that medieval power holders, despite growing autonomy, continued to see the emperor and classical state system as the ultimate sources of political legitimacy. This sentiment was shared by the leaders of the Ashikaga shogunate, who established their headquarters in Kyoto in 1336. The narrative examines how these warrior leaders interacted with the capital’s urban landscape, revealing a surprising degree of deference to classical building protocols and urban codes. Remaining chapters look at the dramatic changes that took place during the Age of Warring States (1467–1580s) and Kyoto’s postwar revitalization under the leadership of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Nobunaga’s construction of Nijō Castle in 1569 transformed Kyoto’s fundamental character and, as Japan’s first castle town, it set an example soon replicated throughout the archipelago. In closing, the book explores how Hideyoshi—like so many before him, yet with much greater zeal—used monumentalism to co-opt and leverage the authority of Kyoto’s traditional institutions. Richly illustrated with original maps and diagrams, Kyoto is a panoramic examination of space and architecture spanning eight centuries. It narrates a history of Japan’s premodern capital relevant to the fields of institutional history, material culture, art and architectural history, religion, and urban planning. Students and scholars of Japan will be introduced to new ways of thinking about old historical problems while readers interested in the cities and architecture of East Asia and beyond will benefit from a novel approach that synthesizes a wide variety of sources. For more on Kyoto: An Urban History of Japan’s Premodern Capital, visit www.kyotohistory.com.