Hiroshige: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo

A good companion while watching NHK TV opera about Tsutaju!

Hard to go wrong.

Many art books are beautiful to look at, as is this one. But few also engage your sense of touch, or provide special bindings suited to the subject matter - as this book does (see below). Bestow it on an art lover and it will not be returned for credit.Ando Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo, first edition, was published in 1859. There would be many subsequent editions. (The series actually contains 119 prints, but the “100” number was better suited for marketing purposes. Don’t want to get into those weeds here.) The collection was an immediate best seller, and today ranks with the artist’s 53 Stations of the Tokaido as his most familiar work.As with most Japanese prints of the era the idea for this series originated with a publisher, who may have been thinking of the “Illustrated Guide to Famous Views of Edo”, published about 20 years earlier. Regardless, Hiroshige delivered a masterpiece. Views sweep across the landscapes, waterscapes and cityscapes of Edo - from an eagle’s view high above frozen tundra to spectacular fireworks over the famed Ryogoku bridge, to merchant quarters dominated by a looming view of Mount Fuji. Hiroshige’s brilliant, inventive mind permeates every print.The thing about Edo era prints is that early editions are almost always far superior to those which followed. Once print best sellers proved their marketplace mettle, publishers were prone to cut corners. Maybe save time and money by not being so fussy about colors specified by the artist, or worked out by the original printer. Maybe don’t worry about repairing broken or worn out lines carved in blocks that should have been retired or patched up much earlier. Hey, by the 10th edition who’s to know?That’s hardly an issue here. As one measure of the care with which this book was designed, the authors elected to photograph a complete first edition - from the Ota Memorial Museum of Art in Tokyo. Colors are exceptionally rich, and well saturated into the handmade paper’s plant fibers.The complete package consists of an inner volume encased in a removable hard cover, on which is imprinted Hiroshige’s splendid “Plum Orchard in Kamada”. For a wonderful, tactile sensation run your fingers lightly over the inner volume’s soft, silky cover.I also mentioned binding. In keeping with tradition the inner volume is stitched with thin silky cord. And the hard cover - really more of a casing than a cover - is secured by two traditional clasps.You or your giftee can spend many a pleasurable hour with Hiroshige’s magnificent achievement (as did the likes of Whistler and van Gogh).Highly recommended.

I bought this book mainly for the art, and considering the final price was just over $20.00 I couldn't resist buying this book. However, I want to clarify something about this book. It says, buried in the item description at the bottom, that the book comes in English, French, and German. I thought that meant that the book was available in 3 different languages, but when I got the book it turns out that sections of it are actually in English, French, and German. This means that the actual content of the book is repeated in various locations, and the book itself is quite thick. I just want you to be aware of this because although there are many beautiful pages with artwork, there are also lots of pages of text - so if you're thinking of giving this book to someone as a gift for the pictures you might want to find a different book that focuses mainly on the art and less on the history. Anyway - I'm super impressed with the book and am looking forward to purchasing more hardcover books on older Japanese art.I consider this book to be a great starting book if you're looking for reference material as an artist as well because the price isn't going to kill you and there are a lot of examples of how to draw different subjects. One thing I bought this book for was to learn how to draw trees in a Japanese style, and within 20 minutes of looking at the book I saw lots of different techniques used from drawing rough outlines of trees and putting line work in to represent leaves to actually drawing individual leaves. It's a great book for learning and I can't recommend it enough.

Good quality of the print, sturdy binding, has annotation in 3 languages. Great value for this price and would be a perfect gift for someone who enjoys Japanese art.

He loves it. It’s a beautiful book of one of his favorite artists. We saw some of these in Japan. Now he wants to go back to see the others

The presentation of this collection is just exquisite! The book itself is pretty large which allows the prints themselves to be showcased in all their glory (I included photo of mass market paperback next to the book for size comparison), and it’s a paperback within a hardcover case. The first pages of the book details the history of woodblock prints and Hiroshige’s work and even includes a map showing the locations of where each print was based. The book then gets into Hiroshige’s prints, each standing alone with a small description on the opposite page. Overall, a gorgeous book I would definitely recommend! The only problem I can see with the book is that if you were to store the book vertically on a shelf, the paperback portion might slip out the bottom.

It came with a big ol giant sticker on it that was hard to get off, and had a paper jacket so that messed up the cover, but it was all right.