The Old Man Mad About Drawing and Hokusai Prints and Drawings

Hokusai was a renowned Japanese artist who died in 1849. Even if you know nothing about Japanese prints you will be familiar with one of his famous images at it inspired the Quiksilver Clothing logo. We have two beautiful books now in the OLRC. The one I love most is Hokusai Prints and Drawings (Author Matthi Forrer). It is a hefty book with 200 pages covering Hokusai's major series (such as 36 Views of Mount Fuji)   nicely reproduced in colour, though not at the original size. There is a thirty page introduction about his life and art.

I can think of many reasons to sift through these beautiful and exotic images. He is an acclaimed master, but also heavily influenced the French Impressionists. Many well known artists have been collectors of his prints. He is sometimes said to be the forerunner of modern Manga, but his works were never assembled into comic styled stories. Individual pictures, however, often tell intriguing stories. When you reflect that much of what is in the book are hand carved woodblocks you can also start to appreciate the artisanship involved in the fine lines, detail and delicate textures.

For younger readers, we have The Old Man Mad About Drawing (by Francois Place). This lovely book tells the story of Hokusai's life from the point of view of a young boy who sells rice cakes and meets the famous artist. It is illustrated both with original Hokusai prints and also with charming illustrations of Japanese street life done in the style of Hokusai. Both book are suitable for any age, with the Biography suiting Year Four and up.

For those who want to follow up connections, I reviewed 36 Views of Mount Fuji by Cathy Davidson a few weeks ago. This is the story of her time spent in Japan and is named and structured as a tribute to Hokusai.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

36 Views of Mount Fuji

Author: Cathy N. Davidson

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This delightful, autobiographical book leapt out at me from the shelves of the gift shop at the Museum of Contemporary Art. It is a poignant and sometimes funny account of the author’s various stays in Japan, where she worked as an English teacher at a university. While the edition I have was published in 2006, the book was written in 1993, so the Japan we meet is not the 21st century Japan. Having been fascinated by the country, culture and people all my life, I found this book touched on many of the complexities of Japan that I have pondered, and I identified strongly with some of her experiences.

At the same time, this is not simply a travelogue. She describes in painful detail sad events in the lives of some who she got close to in Japan, and also the upheaval and devastation of losing unexpectedly a close family member. The book certainly has some amusing and entertaining travel tales, but also deploys some motifs and images that link different scenes.

This is unlikely to attract younger readers but older teens and adults who are interested in Japan or simply the complex interface between cultures will find this stimulating. Several of her stories refer to blown green glass fishing net floats that she used to collect… and I was moved to find just such a float advertised on the website of a Sydney vendor of all things Japanese the other night.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

In Japan the Crickets Cry

Author: Ronald Clements, with Steve Metcalf

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I was bought up on a diet of amazing mission stories, told earnestly, but mostly not well written. I am delighted to discover “In Japan the Crickets Cry” which is a really well written, engrossing missionary story. What makes it all work so well? Certainly Steve Metcalf’s story is quite remarkable: raised in Taku (south-west China) by missionary parents, sent to Chefoo school, there when the area was taken over by Japan. He lived in a concentration camp for a while, but was eventually re-united with his family in Australia. His God-given passion then became the people of Japan: an extraordinary move in the post war atmosphere of recrimination, not reconciliation, as more and more became known about the horrors of torture, forced prostitution and concentration camps. He devoted his life to preaching and serving in Japan, a country to this day notoriously unreceptive to the Christian message.

I have to declare my initial interest was simply my own personal fascination with Japan, but Steve Metcalf’s story touched me on many levels. He does not spare himself as he tells the story of his early heartbreak when a young women who he was deeply in love with turned her back on him as she could not face the idea of being a missionary wife. I am always moved to read about the dilemmas facing missionaries when it comes to their own children, and Steve not only lived these difficulties himself, but later on had to make the same agonizing decision about his own children.

I appreciated the fine balance kept between large picture analyses of the missionary work in Japan and the illuminating minutiae of daily life… and found especially helpful the sections where he reflects on the psychology and sociology of the Japanese people as they struggled to deal with the aftermath of war. The book is not overloaded with detail about language and custom but again the balance is stuck quite well for those who are interested in Japan for its own sake.

Steve Metcalf “retired” in 1990 but has continued to work with Japanese people in the UK and Europe, and the closing chapters detail some of these stories.

Suitable for any age; parents could read snippets to younger children. The book is a rich source of discussion points for the thoughtful teenager (or adult).

Andrew Lack

The Art of the Japanese Garden

Authors: David and Michiko Young

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I confess to a passionate interest in Japanese art, culture and aesthetics, so this book was too wonderful to pass over. I’m not sure how many students will borrow it, but it will be on display and like many of our books of colourful and fascinating photographs will get lots of passing interest.

Japanese gardens do not exist to merely look quaint. They are intended as expressions of various aspects of both Buddhist and Shinto philosophy, and are designed to act upon the viewer’s mind or spirit as much as to please the eye. Any book about Japanese gardens that deals only with lists of plants or landscape techniques would really fail to grapple with the function of these exquisite art forms. The authors, fortunately, give a good historical and philosophical introduction, many fascinating details of techniques, and then extensive illustrations and descriptions of famous gardens of many sorts.

I was especially pleased to see that as well as quarter page photographs illustrating points in the text, they have included a number of full double page spreads, and also used nicely detailed drawings to clarify details of special techniques and garden layouts. Each chapter is richly supported with illustrations. There is a lot of text, despite all the illustrations. The book runs to over 170 pages... my main quibble would be that a rather small font size has been used for body text and illustration captions.

It is far beyond the capacity of most of us to re-create the larger temple or palace gardens... I was fascinated by one photograph showing at least six workers busy shaping and manicuring four incredible old trees. The book isn’t really designed to show one “how to do it”. It would be a wonderful resource for someone planning to travel to Japan, and is certainly a beautiful presentation in reasonable depth for those with an interest in the gardens Japan has created for the world to wonder at.

I could not resist adding my own photograph of one of the mysterious sand mounds discussed in the book.

Andrew Lack

Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

How To Be Polite In Japanes

by Osamu Mizutani and Nobuko Mizutani
I apologise for reviewing a great book that is hard to get. Amazon offers limited and mostly second hand supplies. It was originally published by The Japan Times Ltd. Why tell you about it? Because it has left an indelible mark on my brain. OK, confession time, I have a passion for Japanese art and culture, so that would explain why I was in Kansai Airport (where I bought this).


The writers set out to do more than explain that you bow to be polite, and accept a business card with two hands, read it and hold it while you converse. Their aim is to explain the nuances of Japanese communication, verbal and non-verbal. I'm not sure that I have even seen a work so penetrating and thought provoking about Australian culture.


As an example, they have a section on "Finishing Up", and explain that it is common to have a listener finish a sentence or idea of the speaker. The listener is prompted to do this by various sentence structures and hesitations. The goal is to show that you are both engaged on the one idea, the listener respectfully showing their interest in your thoughts. There are detailed examples (in Roman script and translation).


This is probably not a book to read through from cover to cover unless you are a linguist or cultural anthropologist, but for those interested in Japan or even in broader issues of communication structures, it is wonderfully rewarding because of the insights and detail, and the fact that it reflects on language, delivery, manner, attitudes, non-verbal cues and verbal tone.

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