LIBRI D'ARTE - pagina 41

John Pope-Hennessy
Umberto Allemandi & C.

Ernst H. Gombrich
Giulio Einaudi Editore

Géza von Habsburg
Hirmer Verlag

AA.VV.
Gallerie d'arte Geri

Alceo Dossena
Galleria Micheli

Masako Watanabe
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Nearly as old as humanity itself is the impulse to tell and illustrate stories. In Japan, the narrative drive has been expressed both in sweeping literary sagas (such as the celebrated Tale of Genji) and in long, detailed, stunningly beautiful handscrolls. Storytelling in Japanese Painting presents seventeen classic Japanese stories—tales romantic and horrifying, epic and meditative—as told through 30 remarkable scrolls, ranging from the 13th to 19th centuries. Among them are the supernatural Great Woven Cap; the story of the valiant Peach Boy and his battle against the ogres; the 11th-century psychological novel The Tale of Genji; and the political allegory Tale of a Strange Marriage. Each scroll is accompanied by a brief relation of the tale being illustrated, while the book's introduction discusses the history and tradition of storytelling in Japanese art. A series of multiple gatefolds allows many of these scrolls to be appreciated in detail, while preserving the sweep and grandeur of these complex, colorful, evocative works of visual and narrative wonder.

Orietta Rossi Pinelli
UTET

Diana Scarisbrick
Alain de Gourcuff Éditeur

Lidia Ceserani Ermentini
Edizioni Bolis - Banca Popolare di Crema

Natalia Aspesi
Rizzoli Editore

P. M. Bardi
Edizioni del Milione

s.a.
Cesare Ratta

Paul M. Hohenberg, Lynn Hollen Lees
Editori Laterza

Francesco Bonami
Arnoldo Mondadori Editore

In occasione dell'apertura della Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo di Torino, sorta di laboratorio del contemporaneo, la Piccola Biblioteca Oscar ha voluto cogliere in questo volume un'istantanea dello stato attuale della creatività italiana. Con un'apertura a trecentosessanta gradi, sono indagati gli esiti creativi nel campo dell'arte, della musica, del cinema e del teatro.

Renzo Mangili
Edizioni Monumenta Bergomensia

AA.VV.
Parrocchia S. Maria in Madonna dei Miracoli

David Douglas Duncan
Macmillan and co.

Arturo Carlo Quintavalle
Skira

Giuliano Briganti
Editori Riuniti

s.a.
Galleria la porta d'oro

Giulio Carlo Argan
Alfieri editore

AA.VV.
Bibliotheque publique d'information. Museé national d'art moderne

Tadashi Kobayashi
Kodansha International

Who was the man behind the pseudonym "Utamaro"? We know that he was one of the greatest artists of eighteenth-century Japan, and that he was a master portraitist of women in the woodblock-print tradition known as ukiyo-e. But as for the man himself, we know almost nothing. The little there is-gleaned from contemporary books, miscellaneous writings, temple registers-is brought together in this book to present as clear a picture of Utamaro's life as modem researchers are capable of. Utamaro is placed in his cultural setting-the pleasure-loving urban culture of eighteenth-century Tokyo, the shogun's capital and the de facto center of Japan

Utamaro's world was that of teahouse girls and courtesans whose fame and popularity can only be compared, in modern terms, to those of a movie actress whose name is on every man's lips. His was a world of popular literature and art, of publishers competing for the work of the most talked-about writers and artists. This world, however, was under the constant scrutiny of the authorities, and near the end of his career, Utamaro fell afoul of the government's proscription of certain subject matter, and he was sentenced to three days in prison and fifty days in hand chains.

But Utamaro's life is only one theme of this book. The other is the development of his art, the perfection of his depictions of women that enabled him to capture subtle moods and differences of character. The prints of women produced by the ukiyo-e artists preceding Utamaro showed expressionless beauties of little individuality. It was against this that Utamaro rebelled, creating such prints as that of the kashi, one of the lowest ranking of courtesans-in fact, a mere prostitute. Recognizing within himself the power to see and depict the individual behind the outward appearance, Utamaro added to some of his prints the notation "Studies in Physiognomic Judgment of Character by Utamaro." Modem opinion tends to agree with Utamaro's assessment of himself, and his reputation as an artist of the inner woman has firmly established him in the top ranks of the ukiyo-e world.

Giovanni Caradente
RCS Rizzoli Libri