This book presents a series of paintings by the Japanese 18th century painter Ito Jakuchu called 'Colorful realm of living beings'. It's a series of 30 paintings of mostly flowers and birds, but also some of sealife like fish and seashells or of ponds with fish, frogs and insects. Along with a
Buddhistic tryptich it used to belong to a Japanese temple, but in the 19th century it was donated to the…mehrThis book presents a series of paintings by the Japanese 18th century painter Ito Jakuchu called 'Colorful realm of living beings'. It's a series of 30 paintings of mostly flowers and birds, but also some of sealife like fish and seashells or of ponds with fish, frogs and insects. Along with a Buddhistic tryptich it used to belong to a Japanese temple, but in the 19th century it was donated to the Emperor. It's very rarely exhibited, so a recent exhibition in the USA was a rare opportunity to see these treasures. This book is basically a catalogue of that exhibition, but on a much higher level than most catalogues.
Each of the paintings is first presented on one page, then several detail photos follow, often so close-up that you can study how Jakuchu painted - every single detail is visible in these extreme close-ups. The catalogue part for those 30 paintings takes up 130 pages, which gives you an idea of how generously the photos are used. Each painting is also explained regarding what you see, deeper meanings, technique etc. Then follow several essays on Jakuchu, his style of painting, the colors he used and how they were made, the restoration of the paintings etc. Here you find more illustrations of other paintings by him and other artists, as well as historic photos of the earliest exhibitions of Japanese art in the west. This book is a real treasure trove. What I appreciate the most is the love and respect with which the paintings were treated. There are 300 colour illustrations; nothing that should be in color is in black and white, as is the case in so many art books; and the texts are well-written and interesting, too. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves Japanese art and nature paintings of any kind. It's simply gorgeous.
