CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 2/26/2024

A gorgeous new book on the woodblock virtuosos of the Edo period

Ohara Koson’s 1926 polychrome woodblock print “Scops Owl in Flight under Cherry Blossom and Full Moon” is reproduced from Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiroshige: Geisha, Samurai and the Culture of Pleasure, Skira’s scholarly yet beautifully-produced survey of 460 of the Edo period’s greatest woodblock prints—some elegant, some delicate and others brazenly erotic. Poetic landscapes, flowers and birds, Kabuki dramas, the female universe, the art of love, warriors and heroes all make appearances in prints that exemplify the concept of ukiyo-e, or the floating world, which seventeenth-century Japanese novelist Asai Riyoi described as “living only for the moment, savoring the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and the maple leaves, singing songs, drinking wine and diverting oneself in simply floating, unconcerned by the prospect of imminent poverty, buoyant and carefree like a gourd carried along with the current of the river…”