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Japanese Dream
In July 1863, the photographer Felice Beato arrived at the port city of Yokohama in Japan. He was only 31 years old, but had already established himself as a pioneering figure in the then-nascent field of photography as the first ever war correspondent, and as one of the earliest chroniclers of East Asia, having already documented the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the Second Opium War in China. If these latter works had seemed to celebrate imperial power, Beato's Japan photographs marked a venture into another realm entirely. Beato's portraits of geishas in magnificent kimonos, samurai, sumo wrestlers, and scenes of everyday life and landscapes portrayed the country and its people entirely without condescension. The dignity and grace of his photographic style, as well as his hand-tinting of his images, made an enormous impact on Edo-era Japanese photographers, who found analogies to traditional Japanese woodblock prints in the composition of his images, and Beato established a whole school and style at the close of the nineteenth century. This marvelous and magnificently oversize volume presents an overview of this style, known as the Yokohama school, with beautifully reproduced images by Beato and many others. "Japanese Dream" also records the last embers of a waning culture just prior to modernity.
- GenresPhotography
136 pages, Hardcover
First published November 30, 2012
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May 13, 2016
While searching for books on Japanese photography, which I need for my Master’s thesis – the Swiss woman I write about has amongst many things, a quite big collection of photographs from her travels in Japan and occupied Korea from 1926-39 – I stumbled over this title. I read what it was about and thought it might be a great addition to my “MA thesis, to read” pile. I ordered it, like many other books, from a library in Zürich and let it send to the main library, the ZB. Today I picked up six books, among them this gloriously illustrated piece.
To my surprise, the book is around 45 to 50 cm high and 40 cm wide. Yes, you read that right. It’s gigantic. With the pouring rain going on, it was quite difficult to carry that thing in a paper bag without soaking it in rain water. The closer I got home, the more the bag tore at the bottom corners. Through the power of miracle, the bag didn’t disintegrate, sending four books to their wet demise and the destruction of my wallet because I probably would have had to buy new books…
I can hear yourself asking “Why on earth is she talking about her ridiculous struggle instead of the book?”
Well, because screw this book.
I’m sorry, but I feel cheated. I expected an in-depth analysis of Japanese photography from the 19th century and its motives, semiotics, the collections, or something of that sort.
If you read the description text here on GR you see around ¼ of the length of the text dedicated to Japanese photography. The book has more empty pages than actual text! It starts with two pages of text, the same text in German and English, covering Japanese photography. And the rest are full-page photographs. In between there are title pages and a few poems here and there.
Honestly, I’m flabbergasted. The description promises an interesting look on Japanese photography, instead we get a picture album. Even though the book says on the back that it wants to take the reader on a similar journey through Japan like Felice Beato’s photo albums did, it’s still spectacularly underwhelming. In fact, Beato’s photo albums had more information on the images than this book does! I found this information in another great article by Hockley, where it says that Beato’s colleague wrote extensive explanations on each image and an album could consist of 20 to 100 photos, so…you make the math. There is just NO sense in making a fantastically beautiful book with absolute no content on the history, production, context, and problems regarding Japanese photography. They have the audacity to call that superficial snippet into several decades of artistic work an essay. An essay!
The image quality is great and the photos are huuuuge. The paper is also high quality and the binding material is unique and beautiful and water resistant (I know from experience…) but you can’t publish a book like this with just so little information. I’ve seen modern art books on the batshit craziest artists/performers with more information than here. If you want to explain something, do it fucking right and not like this.
I gave it one extra star for the book’s production quality, otherwise this is a one-star-rating from me. There is just no way I can give a book that glosses over studio photography, exoticism, orientalism, the problematic with the word “Japanese photography” (many photographers were Westerners, especially at the beginning!), the fakeness of the images and experiences, the many different kind of collections and collectors, etc. etc., more than one star.
To my surprise, the book is around 45 to 50 cm high and 40 cm wide. Yes, you read that right. It’s gigantic. With the pouring rain going on, it was quite difficult to carry that thing in a paper bag without soaking it in rain water. The closer I got home, the more the bag tore at the bottom corners. Through the power of miracle, the bag didn’t disintegrate, sending four books to their wet demise and the destruction of my wallet because I probably would have had to buy new books…
I can hear yourself asking “Why on earth is she talking about her ridiculous struggle instead of the book?”
Well, because screw this book.
I’m sorry, but I feel cheated. I expected an in-depth analysis of Japanese photography from the 19th century and its motives, semiotics, the collections, or something of that sort.
If you read the description text here on GR you see around ¼ of the length of the text dedicated to Japanese photography. The book has more empty pages than actual text! It starts with two pages of text, the same text in German and English, covering Japanese photography. And the rest are full-page photographs. In between there are title pages and a few poems here and there.
Honestly, I’m flabbergasted. The description promises an interesting look on Japanese photography, instead we get a picture album. Even though the book says on the back that it wants to take the reader on a similar journey through Japan like Felice Beato’s photo albums did, it’s still spectacularly underwhelming. In fact, Beato’s photo albums had more information on the images than this book does! I found this information in another great article by Hockley, where it says that Beato’s colleague wrote extensive explanations on each image and an album could consist of 20 to 100 photos, so…you make the math. There is just NO sense in making a fantastically beautiful book with absolute no content on the history, production, context, and problems regarding Japanese photography. They have the audacity to call that superficial snippet into several decades of artistic work an essay. An essay!
The image quality is great and the photos are huuuuge. The paper is also high quality and the binding material is unique and beautiful and water resistant (I know from experience…) but you can’t publish a book like this with just so little information. I’ve seen modern art books on the batshit craziest artists/performers with more information than here. If you want to explain something, do it fucking right and not like this.
I gave it one extra star for the book’s production quality, otherwise this is a one-star-rating from me. There is just no way I can give a book that glosses over studio photography, exoticism, orientalism, the problematic with the word “Japanese photography” (many photographers were Westerners, especially at the beginning!), the fakeness of the images and experiences, the many different kind of collections and collectors, etc. etc., more than one star.
Displaying 1 of 1 review