Sketches from Japan

Sketches from Japan is the charming record of an eminent architect's visit to Tokyo and Kyoto. Each day Francis Ching would walk downtown, past temples and through residential districts, recording his visual impressions with a fine pen. He delights in the juxtapositions of old and new, hard-edged and organic, plain and richly textured, that are nowhere more striking than in a modern Japanese city. His freehand line drawings capture the essence of springtime Japan--more successfully than photographs, perhaps, through the isolation of elements and elimination of details inherent in the sketching process. The dark wood of an ancient gateway is emphasized by drawing the surrounding trees only in profile; the shaggy outline of a thatch roof suggests its straw surface as clearly as a completed study. The artist places each drawing in context with a few articulate sentences; he includes some gentle lessons on drawing and geometry, but the text is not didactic. The intimacy of many of the scenes--small interiors, architectural details, people strolling down narrow streets--is enhanced by the informality of the pen-and-ink medium. The monochromatic line treatment is in keeping with traditional Japanese sumi-ink drawings. The book also continues a tradition set by 18th-century haiku poets and artists such as Buson and Taiga, who recorded their journeys in combinations of diary and sketchbook. Sketches from Japan is a small-scale gem, and we can learn as much from it as from many more elaborate photographic studies and coffee-table books. --John Stevenson