1. Books and Catalogues in Brief
names and therefore ignores the grass roots
complexity of an incredible art scene stuffed
with artists both meek and mighty.
peter davies
Artist and author, Bristol
JAPANESE WARRIOR PRINTS
1646–1905
james king and yuriko iwakiri
Hotei Publishing, Leiden & Boston, 2007 $155.00
isbn 978 9074822 848
T
his is the first publication to appear
in English that is devoted to musha-e
or images of warriors. Such images
were produced from the early history of
woodblock prints in the seventeenth
century, first in book form, and later as
independent prints.
They were initially monochrome or
hand-coloured, then with one or two-
colours added, but after the mid-eighteenth
century, full-colour prints were the norm.
Stories of warriors had been compiled
since the tenth century, and had supplied
material for puppet plays, kabuki, prints
applied to votive tablets offered at Shinto
shrines and Buddhist temples, and subse-
quently, material for illustrated books. The
market for such books grew rapidly in the
seventeenth century, and was centred first on
the Kyoto/Osaka area, and later Edo. Their
topics (ukiyo-e or pictures of the ‘floating
world’) were largely from what might be
loosely called the world of entertainment.
Their main customers were from the
merchant class, who were disdained by the
warrior class, the samurai. Full-colour
printing, introduced from the 1760s, was (1797–1861) and his successors enjoyed Utagawa Kunisada (1786 --1865) Zhuang Shi
applied to pictures of warriors as well as enormous success with warrior prints. Xinchi Slaying aTiger in the Mountains (Soshi Shinki
Sankan ni tora o utsu) from the series ‘Military
actors and courtesans, although the for- The choice of stories of battles from Tales of the Han and Chu’ (‘Kanso gundan’),
mer remained a minority genre until the earlier centuries was necessary, as the c. 1828--30. From Japanese Warrior Prints
1646--1905 byJames King andYuriko Iwakiri.
early nineteenth century. Tokugawa shoguns forbade the depiction
The Edo period (1603–1868) marked a of any events that had taken place after
lengthy period of peace for Japan under the 1592. Indeed, the ‘Kansei Reforms’ forbade graphy, brought the use of woodblock prints
authoritarian rule of the Tokugawa shoguns. mention of any members of the Tokugawa to an end by the early twentieth century.
The samurai were now redundant, although family, the reporting of current events, the The main part of the book is a detailed
many continued to receive pensions from publication of calendars, and ‘the dissemi- catalogue of some 220 prints, which are
their feudal lords (daimyo) and representa-
¯ nation of unorthodox philosophies’. reproduced in full colour to an excellent
tions of them steadily grew in popularity. In 1868 the shogunate was abolished standard, and accompanied by a detailed
The catalyst for the changes seems to (although censorship of prints continued explanation of the subject matter of each
have been the illustrations made by until 1875) and the modernisation of print, invaluable to the average Western
Hokusai (1760–1849) for the ‘reading Japan was decreed. The government encour- reader. Almost half of these come from the
books’ such as Tales of the Water Margin – aged the production of patriotic images to collection of one of the authors (James
an illustrated version of a form of the be displayed in homes, but warrior prints King); the others come from museums
Robin Hood stories. The fact that they were were now expected to depict contemporary and collections in Japan, the USA, and
about the vaguely subversive topic of bands Japanese military triumphs, usually at the Europe. There is enormous variety of style
of outlaws increased their popularity with expense of the Chinese. Newer and faster and use of colour, but to this reader, at
the public. Following him, Kuniyoshi techniques of reproduction, such as photo- least, there seems to be little discrepancy
r 2009 the authors. journal compilation r 2009 bpl/aah volume 16 issue 1 february 2009 The Art Book 79

2. Books and Catalogues in Brief
in quality between private and public galleries were completed, following a four- refers to as the obscurity and the exaltation
collections. The virtuosity shown by some year renovation project. The contributors of ancient sculpture. In the essays that
of the creators of what were essentially are sculpture specialists working in acade- follow, sculpture emerges in its various
very cheap works of art is astonishing, and mia and museums, with essays by profes- guises, media and locations – in reliefs,
their low cost is what made their posses- sors of art history in the United States and ivories (such as the extraordinary ivory of
sion in private hands possible. Europe and senior curators from major a Bolognese dog made before 1625),
Although the majority date from the international institutions, including the ‘in architectural sculptures and furniture –
nineteenth century heyday of musha-e there house’ team at the National Gallery of Art, displayed and dispersed in royal and papal
are a significant number (45) from the the Metropolitan Museum and the Direttore collections, in France, Spain, Britain, Italy
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. of the Galleria Borghese in Rome. and Dalmatia. The collectors represented
These prints are one of the main sources What emerges from the volume is the include Erasmus of Rotterdam, the Medici,
of our knowledge of samurai arms and buoyancy of sculpture studies from the the Eighth Earl of Pembroke and Sir
armour, or at least what Edo period Japan fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries in Francis Dashwood. The focus shifts from
thought they should have been. Since Europe under the rubric of the history of royal and elite European collectors, to
writers of the eighteenth century, such as collecting. What is less clear is how its sculptors who belonged to institutions
Sakakibara Kozan, were urging the use of
¯ editors understand collecting in relation to such as the Accademia di San Luca, and
medieval models upon contemporary ar- patronage and display; the processes of to sculptors as collectors as well as makers
mourers, this is perhaps not the failing that making and the vagaries of the market. of sculpture. One of the most impressive
it might seem. So this book may be The papers only hang together as a essays, by Frits Scholten, looks at the
enthusiastically recommended to students coherent collection of essays in the very inventory of the sculptor Johan Larson of
of Japanese arms and armour as well to loosest sense. Alison Luchs’ discussion of The Hague, which lists about 275 sculp-
those impressed by Japanese art in general. the Companions of Diana for Marly by Jean- tures and models in his mid-seventeenth-
alan williams Louis Lemoyne (dated 1724) is directly century workshop for the production of
The Wallace Collection concerned with a sculpture in the National lead and plaster casts. Later, Olga Raggio
Gallery collection at Washington and focuses on Clement XI’s museum of modelli
COLLECTING SCULPTURE IN follows nicely an account of the Jardin in the Vatican Palace, whose full-scale
EARLY MODERN EUROPE Haut at Marly. Most of the contributions models by Bernini and Rinaldi for the
are lengthy and learned, based on the angels of the altar of the Blessed Sacra-
n penny and e d schmidt (eds)
current researches of the contributors, ment in St. Peter’s are modelled in clay
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Center for with appendices and substantial foot- mixed with straw over an iron armature
Advanced Study in the Visual Arts 70, Symposium
Papers XLVII 2008 d40.00 $75.00
notes. All the essays draw on visual and held by a wooden support. Penny’s final
512pp. Fully illustrated archival evidence related to their projects; essay, on ‘The evolution of the plinth,
isbn 9780300121605 those about the display of sculptures in the pedestal and socle’, could provide the
ˆ
Chateau of Marly, for instance, reproduce starting point for another of the National
explanatory views, plans and maps. Gallery’s Studies in the History of Art, which is
T
his volume of 20 essays and an
introduction represents the pub- In an opening essay, Salvatore Settis now in its forty-first year with 77 volumes
lished proceedings of a symposium surveys the antecedents for Renaissance already published or forthcoming.
held in Washington in 2003, the year after sculpture collecting, focusing on the viccy coltman
the National Gallery of Art’s new sculpture prolonged transition between what he University of Edinburgh/CASVA
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80 The Art Book volume 16 issue 1 february 2009 r 2009 the authors. journal compilation r 2009 bpl/aah