MARIA DUARTE, FIONA O’CONNOR and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Savage House, Enzo, Madfabulous, and Erupcja
Latest editorial
Pictures of the Floating World, Gallagher & Turner, Newcastle upon Tyne
Striking show of the glories of Japanese woodblock printing
FINE PRINTMAKING: Kunichika, Model Heroes of Magic, 1879
CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
KENNY MacASKILL relishes a fictionalised account of the life and death of the principled Irish anti-colonialist, executed for betraying his English imperial masters
FIONA O’CONNOR admires an ambitious first novel that loosens South Africa’s rainbow collective to examine the racial tensions within
Aussie mining corporation murder, Liverpudlian ex-cop amnesia, a naive vigilante tries to reset capitalism, and the riddle of the dead psychoanalyst
SYLVIA HIKINS is persuaded by an entertaining play that the true miracle of Lourdes would be for attitudes toward disability to change
THE golden age of Japanese woodblock printing in the 18th and 19th centuries saw the spread of a highly populist art form, described as Ukiyo-e, “pictures of the floating world.”
Its meaning captures the fleeting, ephemeral pleasures of life — mostly for Japanese men — the theatre, beautiful women, courtesans, folklore stories and the beauty of animals, flowers and plants.
Produced in books, scrolls or as loose sheets, woodblock prints were made and circulated widely throughout Japanese society from the early 1600s right through until the mid-20th century, with some artists still operating with new styles and methods today.
Similar stories
SIMON PARSONS applauds an artist who rescues and rehumanises stories of women, the victims of violence, from a feminist perspective
JULIA THOMAS unpicks the mental processes that explain why book-to-film adaptations so often disappoint
JOHN GREEN welcomes a remarkable study of Mozambique’s most renowned contemporary artist
BLANE SAVAGE recommends the display of nine previously unseen works by the Glaswegian artist, novelist and playwright