A simple and provocative book offering a revisionist photo-essay on the ever-popular
Japanese "dry landscape" or "rock" gardens. Not Zen, possibly art, more like "meta-gardens,"
gravel and sand compositions reject nature, yet are made of omnipresent natural dust. Quick
to crumble, they are defiantly maintained by priest/ rakers. Credited with philosophical
profundity, their origins are murky, their meanings uncertain but immediate. Koren deliberately
ignores "celebrity" rocks, moss, and foliage to demystify and explore a most peculiar human
enterprise. Beautifully illustrated with duotone photographs of gravel and sand
gardens in Kyoto.
96 pp, 6 x 912", paper, 37 duotone photographs ISBN 1-880656-43-4, $19.95
A simple and provocative book offering a revisionist photo-essay on the ever-popular
Japanese "dry landscape" or "rock" gardens. Not Zen, possibly art, more like "meta-gardens,"
gravel and sand compositions reject nature, yet are made of omnipresent natural dust. Quick
to crumble, they are defiantly maintained by priest/ rakers. Credited with philosophical
profundity, their origins are murky, their meanings uncertain but immediate. Koren deliberately
ignores "celebrity" rocks, moss, and foliage to demystify and explore a most peculiar human
enterprise. Beautifully illustrated with duotone photographs of gravel and sand
gardens in Kyoto.