A selection of recently published books on:
Photography - Japanese gardens - Indonesian puppets

by Caroline Herrick

Two recently published books showcase black-and-white photographs of contemporary Vietnam and Chinaof landscapes and peoplethat, although in no way sentimental, achieve a timeless quality. (Edition Stemmle, 2002, $55) is a collection of photographs by Peter Steinhauer, the son of a Vietnam-war veteran, who went to Hanoi after completing photography school in 1993 intending to visit for three months, but ended up staying for seven years. As he photographed the country and its people, his one rule was that he "would not photograph anything that had to do with the war." His portraits whether of three Dao children in traditional dress, a monk at prayer in front of an elaborate altar, or Van Cao (1923- 97), one of Vietnam's most respected composersare imbued with a quiet dignity, and his landscapes, with a luminous grandeur. The photograph of the waterfalls at Ban Gioc, Cao Bang Province, brings to mind Frederick Edwin Church's paintings of Niagra Falls, and some of the mountainous landscapes, Church's South American paintings. The photographs in (Wisdom, 2002, $24.95) bear less resemblance to the Hudson River School than to traditional Chinese landscape painting. They were taken by Steven R. Johnson during two trips to China, the first in 1989, in search of what remains of the Buddhist and Taoist hermit-sage tradition and capture the craggy mountains, precariously placed temples, pine trees gnarled by the wind, mist, isolated huts, and modern-day recluses still to be found far from China's crowded cities. The photographs are juxtaposed with Tang-dynasty (618-906) poemsrendered in both Chinese and English translationby hermits, monks, or scholar-officials in search of refuge, including Wang Wei, Li Bo, and Han-shan. Mike O'Connor is the translator.

(Phaidon, 2002, $39.95) is a posthumous collection of photographs by the master of saturated color, Raghubir Singh (1942-99). Each of the photographs includes, in one way or another, the Ambassadorthe quintessential Indian car, which Singh describes as "the People's Car, the Politicians' Car, India's Rolls-Royce and stretch limousine all rolled into one solid, yet shaky entity"whether the images, both rural and urban, are of the car, are framed by the car's windows, or are reflected in its mirrors. One is of an Ambassador whose white paint is faded so that it almost matches the silvery-gray coat of the moneky perched on its windshield, bending its antenna; in another, the rust-colored cloth that serves as a cover for the car echoes the hues of the Red Fort in Delhi, in front of which it is parked; and in yet another, a family walking on the beach in Tamil Nadua is framed by the doorway of an Ambassador whose interior is the same shade of intense blue-green as the sea.

In (University of California Press, 2002, $39.95), Los Angeles-based photojournalist Don Farber, himself a Buddhist, presents Buddhism as it is practiced today, through both color and black-and-white photographs of ordinary practitioners and great teachers, of temples and monasteries, in use, in India, Nepal, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, China, and the United States. Included are a series of portraits of the Dalai Lama, as well as portraits of the Vietnamese Zen master Tich Nhat Hanh, the Supreme Patriarch for Cambodian Buddhism Maha Ghosananda, the sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa (whose successor, the seventeenth Karmapa, fled from Tibet to India in 2000), Tibetan women spinning prayer wheels, Tibetan men prostrating themselves, and monks and nuns at prayer and at play.

Except for the type of weapons the men hold, the 1879 photograph "Camp Scene Jellalabad" from John Burke's Afghan War album that appears on the contents page of by Omar Khan (Prestel, 2002, $65) looks very much like the photographs of Afghanistan we see in the news today. John Burke and William Baker were among the earliest photographers of northern British India and the independent realms of Kashmir and Afghanistan, the area where the Great Game between Russia and Britain was carried out. Although well-known in their daythey won many of the top photography awards in competitions throughout British India and engravings based on their photographs frequently appeared in the mass-market London weekliestheir work has been overlooked, perhaps because the history of the area where they worked is less well-documented than that of the British mercantile centers of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. In this meticulously researched book, the careers of the two photographers, who were partners during the 1860s and early 1870s (until Baker retired in 1973), as well as the history of the regions they photographed, are traced and illustrated with numerous examples of their work.

Both artists and armchair travelers will find Barry Dawson's an inspiring guide, although the book's title is somewhat of a misnomer. Some of the material, such as teenage fashions or the stone jizo figures found in the city's shrines and cemeteries, is not two-dimensional, and some, such as posters and postcards found at flea markets, is not readily seen on the street. But there are plenty of examples of the calligraphy and manga-inspired images found on everything from T-shirts and headbands, to shopping bags and cake packaging, to restaurant and nightclub signs. My only wish was that more of the panoramic streetscapes, filled with neon signs and billboards, had been included.

For readers who are interested in Japanese gardens, there are several new books to choose from. (Kodansha, 2002, $39) features over a hundred photographs of Kyoto's tsuboniwa by Katsuhiko Mizuno, who also wrote the text (translated by John Bester). A tsuboniwa is "a garden enclosed by different parts of a single structure such as a house or a temple, forming a relatively small space cut off from the outside world," and the architecture of the building is, therefore, integral to the garden's design. The "dry landscapes" of Zen temples are perhaps the most well-known examples of the form, but the book also includes gardens from palaces, shrines, and private residences, many of which include carefully placed trees and shrubs. In the long, narrow townhouses built by Kyoto merchants as early as the Muromachi period (1333-1573), the small gardens were designed to provide light and air, but they grew to play an aesthetic role as well. At the end of the book, the author, who is a native of Kyoto, describes how he designed a tsuboniwa for a merchant-class townhouse in the city's Nishijin area.

Wybe Kuitert's (University of Hawaii Press, 2002, $50) is a revised and expanded version of his earlier book entitled Themes, Scenes, and Taste in the History of Japanese Garden Art. The author, a practicing landscape architect as well as a visiting professor at the Kyoto University of Art and Design, examines the history of the Japanese garden as an art form, relating it to painting and literature, and looks at Japanese gardens from the perspective of both those who owned and commissioned them and their designers. Three periods are discussed: the later Heian (from the tenth to the late-twelfth century), when "the foundations of a native tradition of garden art were laid"; the medieval period (the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries), when garden art in Japan was strongly influenced by the theories of Chinese landscape art; and the early modern period (the first half of the seventeenth century), when the practice and theory of garden art "became established in a way that does not differ much from our own days." The text is complemented by numerous plans and diagrams of gardens, illustrations traced from historical documents, examples of gardens found in woodblock prints and paintings, and photographs by the author.

In his introduction to (Stone Bridge Press, 2002, $16.95), Marc Peter Keane describes the physical worlds people create for themselves as manifestations of their social structures and spiritual mindsets. In the eight philosophical essays that comprise the book, Keane, an American who has lived in Kyoto for twenty years and who also teaches at the Kyoto University of Art and Design, muses on the physical world of Kyoto, on how its gardens relate to the broader culture. Keane is an astute observer of the natural world, and his essays evoke a strong sense of place that will appeal equally to gardeners, naturalists, and Japanophiles.

Indonensia's wayang golek puppet theater, like the mystery plays of medieval Europe, was traditionally used to disseminate religion, ethics, and politics, in addition to being a form of entertainment, and even today, puppet masters are respected members of their communities and powerful arbiters of popular opinion. Performances often mark important life passages, such as circumcisions, naming ceremonies, and weddings, or community events, such as the dedication of a building, or modern national holidays. by Mimi Herbert with Nur S. Rahardjo, (University of Hawaii Press, 2002, $49) brings this six-hundred-year-old art form to life for English-speaking readers by letting the puppet masters speak for themselves. Each of the ten chapters of the book is devoted to an interview with a leading puppet master (in one case, a family of puppet masters), and is lavishly illustrated with photographs of puppets, puppet masters, and performances. Perhaps one result of this book will be a greater interest in this art form outside Indonesia. Indeed, one of the puppet masters interviewed is Kathy Foley, an American who is provost and professor of theater arts at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Foley studied with Otong Rasta and Asep Sundandar Sunarya, two of the Javanese puppet masters interviewed for the book, and now brings traditional wayang golek to American audiences.