Choosing a book using the three words from the previous post was a tricky task, whenever I thought I had found a suitable solution, it failed on one of the criteria. This time I had to take more care and consideration in looking at every book individually. But as one of my key words was ‘small’ I started looking only at small books, but with no luck, so I decided to jump to the other end of the spectrum and only look at the oversized books.
Then I came across a book on Japanese prints. Japanese art is something that I have always for interesting but I know very little about it. The traditions are so different to those of the western world that I find a lot of it very hard to access. This book fails in all the areas the last book succeeded, It is made from this horrible shiny card which is almost sticky to the touch. It is bound just like 99% of the other books, it all looks a bit cheap in the end. But the one area where it is successful, unlike the previous book, is the content. The collection of prints are really intriguing, mostly black and white. Also included in the book is a lot of Chinese calligraphy, which obviously is very unclear for me, but nonetheless it as a certain elegance that is unique to the Asian aesthetic. But I can’t help but think that this book would be so much more successful had it been bound with the Japanese traditions, it would just make sense.
Rietveld Library cat.nr: 1058
