Tokyo: Art & Photography

Lovingly curated book covering a long period of history.

First of all this book really is 5* content - I’ve given 4* for some of the design/production choices but these are quite minor.To start with I think this book is not just a museum catalogue for an exhibition but a real exploration of the cultural upheaval Japan experienced during the Edo/Meiji period and into the 21st century. I attended the exhibition but this book has so much more detail and is definitely a standalone informative and artistic book.There are about 27 essays covering a real range of topics from broad areas such as photography (highlighting major mid 20th century Japanese photographers) and “modern girls”, manga, cinema, to more niche topics such as Edo in maps, earthquakes, and the emperor and focusing on particular individuals.Through these essays you get a real flavour of Japanese history and culture - I would say I know a reasonable amount about Japan (in a general not academic sense!) but even I found interesting new titbits about things, and the writing is very clear and engaging so whether you are looking for a general read or something more scholarly it reads well.Broadly the essays are chronological, starting in the Edo period (this makes sense as before this period Tokyo was a relatively small marshy port) and going through to modern day. Some essays I found better written and more interesting than others but surprisingly even for the essays I found less engaging, every single essay was informative and gave me new information, or presented a link between things I knew already in a refreshing way. My very minor gripe is the last essay seems to abruptly conclude (as opposed to the very informative introduction). Of course this book is not comprehensive and they have managed the length/detail in each essay well - a high-level selection, a tapas rather than a three course meal and this was a good approach.DESIGNI’ve given it 4* as noted for the production design. Firstly this is a more square format book and I have to say it’s difficult to read as a paperback due to its size and weight. I would have been happy to pay a bit more for a hardback as given the wealth of text you do need to “hold” it to read it (not just flick through for images like a image based coffee table book).I also found the font for captions for the images incredibly small and difficult to read (and I’d say my eyesight is very good!). I own a variety of books and these are the smallest captions I’ve come across for a book of this size. I’m not sure why they couldn’t have increased the font size and or given each image a number/figure so then you could easily reference them. This links to the next criticism - the text frequently refers to images by page, but when multiple images on a page it complicates things. Ideally I would have liked to have seen more images placed nearer the text that discusses it to avoid flicking back and forth constantly.Some of the images they have also chosen to print small - I appreciate that you can’t print everything to a larger size but looking at some images that only take up a third of the page or left it’s hard to get the detail. Even for some of the larger works, a lot of detail is lost and one wonders whether the point could have been better made to isolate a detail or section of a larger work within the book at the same size so you could appreciate it more.I appreciate these are all minor issues in some ways and it doesn’t detract from the fact this is a very very good book re content. However it feels a shame that by cheaping out on a paperback only and having tiny captions has damped an otherwise excellent experience.Overall a wonderful book if you are interested in Japan and Japanese art/culture more broadly (not just Tokyo). For more literature The Bells of Old Tokyo by Anna Sherman is a great read as is Another Kyoto by Alex Kerr.

I bought the book at the Ashmolean after seeing their fantastic exhibition, as a souvenir. I was surprised how many beautiful images the book contains and that it goes beyond the exhibition - it provides a good overview on Tokyo art from the past until today, manga, architecture etc. With its cool design and the pink edges it looks very stylish on my coffee table too.

Beautifully designed, informative and a great combination of meaningful texts and stylish coffee table book.

Superb volume celebrating the creativity that flows from Tokyo. Well-researched historical and landmark events in the evolution of Tokyo craft covered in depth. Looking forward to attending the exhibition at Ashmolean - congrats to all involved in the exhibition and of course this accompanying book.