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Themes in the History of Japanese Garden Art. By WYBE KUITERT. Rev. ed. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. xviii, 283 pp. $50.00 (cloth).
Japanese gardens hold a widespread allure unlike any other garden. As a small measure of this, simply look at Amazon.com, the Internet bookseller. Although they have a subject category called Japanese gardens, they do not have an English gardens category, or one for French gardens, or Chinese, Persian, or Italian for that matter. Japan is the only country-based category. Yet, despite this apparently unique spot in the attention of the English-reading public and the great number of books available on the subject in English, there are very few scholarly books available. For this reason alone, Wybe Kuitert's careful study, Themes in the History of Japanese Garden Art, would hold an important place in the literature, but there is more.
Originally published as Themes, Scenes, and Taste in the History of Japanese Garden Art (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1988), essentially a bound edition of Kuitert's doctoral dissertation at Kyoto University, this new edition was republished by the University of Hawai'i in a larger, easier-to-read format. The material has been completely re-edited, a section of color plates...