Pardon my French, but it was either that circumflex-free version of the title of the book or the Japanese title, but I don’t trust myself not to cut and paste the address of the printers by mistake. Them’s the breaks when your art education consists of YouTube videos supplemented by the odd art catalogue from the wonderfully named Japanese second-hand book chain Book Off.
And that’s where I got this 1993 catalogue that documents 176 artworks exhibited in Japan from the Grenoble museum. Although I’ve been getting a bit tired of looking at impressionist catalogues which hog the art shelves of Book Off, I bought and enjoyed this one, not because it has any great explanations of the artworks in English (none actually) or any other language for that matter, but because it featured some good paintings pre- and post-impressionist that I’d not seen in other collections. I snapped some of them and include them here, if you’re interested.
It’s a good selection of some pretty good paintings and the sketches, sculptures and painted dishes after the oil paintings weren’t bad either.
No. 7 of 100 books I intend to read and review in 2019.
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Patrick Sherriff publishes a monthly newsletter highlighting good fiction about Japan and featuring an original painting or sketch. He lives in Abiko, Japan, with his wife and two daughters.
Patrick Sherriff 