Customer Rating:  
Summary: Typos
Comment: The two essays included at the beginning of the book, and especially the one by Thomas Zacharias, are excellent. The prints are carefully chosen with truly wonderful commentary. For its price, this book is indeed a great bargain.
However, maybe because I love to love books too, I was very disappointed by several typos (Bhuddism, public instead of pubic hair, punctuation and one stylistic error). Too bad, since the overall quality of the book is fantastic and it is incomprehensible to me how these typos could have been overlooked.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Japanese Prints
Comment: I don't really know anything about Japanese artwork or famous artists-I bought this book a couple years ago for the pictures of the Samurai. Because of this, all I can really say is that it is a well laid-out and attractive book full of beautiful Japanese art depicting all kinds of scenes and subjects. It makes a great coffee-table book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Comment: Don't get me wrong, the book is well produced, with a lovely dust jacket, and it's inexpensive. However, if you're looking for Hiroshige and Hokusai and the kind of pictures that I in my ignorance associate with that school of art--landscapes, cityscapes and depictions of the natural world--you will be as disappointed as I was.
There are roughly 160 pages of color plates. Great! Except that about 25 of those pages are devoted to the kind of pictures I mention above. The other 150 pagesor so are devoted to depictions of human figures, mainly women as they get dressed and apply makeup. This is an important element of Japanese art, I suppose, but it is one that does not interest me. The cover of the book, which depicts Hokusai's famous tsunami wave in front of Mt Fiji, is misleading in the extreme. Yes that picture is in the book, but as I say, for every such picture there are literally five or six pictures of geisha women combing their hair. Yawn.
I'm no expert in Japanese art; I just happened to see a small exhibit in a local museum, thought it was great, and ordered this book because I wanted to see more. I'm not interested in human figures. If you are, go for it, it's a great book. But if you're hoping for landscapes, koi fish, snowy mountainsides, views of Edo, etc, avoid this book. Or you can look for a copy at the local used bookstore, which is where I'm taking mine this afternoon.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Beautiful!
Comment: This is a really good book on the ukiyo-e art of Japan. The more celebrated of artists are represented, including Hiroshige and his views of Edo (Tokyo), Hokusai's Mt. Fuji work, and Utamaro's geishas. Taschen is always good with its reproductions and the art looks great on the page. There are good essays on the origins and history of the style, along with a glossary to help with unfamiliar terms. This is a very beautiful art form that is represented well in this collection of works.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Insane bargain
Comment: Beautiful reproductions and informative text.
For ten bucks!
A great introduction to the floating world.
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