Japanese prints: 300 years of albums and books

For over 300 years Japanese woodblock printed albums and books were a medium for the greatest graphic art; yet these masterpieces of design and technique have remained almost unknown, except to a small circle of connoisseurs. This book, which introduces them to a wider audience, describes 150 carefully selected examples. They range from the early seventeenth century, when the Japanese publishing industry began its dramatic expansion, through the great masterpieces of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the survival of the tradition into our own age. Every work is illustrated in colour or black and white. Included are some of the peaks of printmaking of not only Japan but of the whole world - the exquisite Insect Book of Utamaro, the brilliant designs of Suiseki's Painting Album, and the endlessly varied 100 Views of Fuji of Hokusai.

In addition, there is a long introduction on the history of Japanese woodblock printing and a bibliography to make this a useful handbook to a rich but almost unexplored world of art.