From Booklist
Kyoto gardens epitomize the austere yet visually potent elements of Japanese garden design. Mizuno's exquisite photography reveals the essential attributes of Japan's primary garden styles, offering breathtaking glimpses of private landscapes where refined textural effects are achieved in vast ponds surrounded by emerald evergreens, dry gravel waterfalls, and mossy expanses. Although the text accompanying each image is brief, Ono deftly explicates the consequence of a rock's placement or the calligraphic potency of raked stone, and clearly delineates the significant aspects of the pond, dry landscape, and tea garden. From the dynamic asymmetry governing a composition of shapely trees to the transitory response engendered by falling leaves, an ethereal perfection comes to pass in Mizuno and Ono's melding of words and pictures. Alice Joyce
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Los Angeles Times
"Between these elegant covers...readers are treated to some of Kyoto's most exquisite gardens that never open to the public."

Book Description
Off the beaten track, not easily seen because in private or official hands, these are the "hidden gardens" of one of the world’s great historic cities. All the main types of Japanese garden are represented. First comes the pond garden, which on the grandest scale can be a match for the lake-wood-and-meadow parks of Western estates, and on a more modest scale still contains islands and bridges and pavilions. Then there is the dry landscape garden, whose gravel, rocks, and moss have an austerity remote from most Westerners’ idea of a garden, yet whose purpose, once understood, leaves an impression of dignity and resonance. And finally the tea garden, whose scrupulous simplicity belies great sophistication in the arrangement of its few components. To a much greater degree than Western gardens, their enjoyment depends on knowing how to interpret them: how to look for the auspicious tortoise stones—a wedge-shaped head poking out of the ground—or the wings of a stone crane; the symbolic waterfall where no water flows; the bridge that crosses from this world into the next. No better guides to these underlying attributes can be found than the photographer of this book, who has spent most of his life in the old capital, and the commentator, a professional garden designer who learned his craft from one of the twentieth century’s greatest landscape gardeners. With their help we learn such things as why no flowers bloom in the tea garden, and why its paths are seldom straight; or why some scenery is best seen in passing from a boat rather than on dry land. As a sequel to the acclaimed LANDSCAPES FOR SMALL SPACES, this new appreciation of the traditional Japanese garden will give as much, if not more, pleasure, since part of its attraction is knowing that the gate into these gardens—which might otherwise be closed—is, in these pages, open to us all.

From the Publisher
Supreme examples of the art of Japanese gardens, not easily accessible to the public.

About the Author
The photographer: Katsuhiko Mizuno, born in Kyoto in 1941, graduated from Doshisha University and the Tokyo College of Photography. His camera has been focused on his historic home town since 1969. In 2000 he renovated a Kyoto townhouse said to date from the latter half of the Edo period, converting it into a museum housing his photographic works. He has published over 110 books, including the English-language Landscapes for Small Spaces (Kodansha International), which won a Gold Medal in the Foreword 2002 Book of the Year Awards. The author: Masaaki Ono, born in Nara in 1947, graduated from Doshisha University. After studying garden design under the distinguished and influential Mirei Shigemori, he opened his own design office. Among his many projects have been gardens at Seirenji, Jotokuin, and Shojokein temples, as well as those he designed for teahouses, inns, and private residences.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Off the beaten track, not easily seen because in private or official hands, these are the ￯﾿ﾽhidden gardens￯﾿ﾽ of one of the world￯﾿ﾽs great historic cities.

All the main types of Japanese garden are represented. First comes the pond garden, which on the grandest scale can be a match for the lake-wood-and-meadow parks of Western estates, and on a more modest scale still contains islands and bridges and pavilions. Then there is the dry landscape garden, whose gravel, rocks, and moss have an austerity remote from most Westerners￯﾿ﾽ idea of a garden, yet whose purpose, once understood, leaves an impression of dignity and resonance. And finally the tea garden, whose scrupulous simplicity belies great sophistication in the arrangement of its few components.

To a much greater degree than Western gardens, their enjoyment depends on knowing how to interpret them: how to look for the auspicious tortoise stones￯﾿ﾽa wedge-shaped head poking out of the ground￯﾿ﾽor the wings of a stone crane; the symbolic waterfall where no water flows; the bridge that crosses from this world into the next.

No better guides to these underlying attributes can be found than the photographer of this book, who has spent most of his life in the old capital, and the commentator, a professional garden designer who learned his craft from one of the twentieth century￯﾿ﾽs greatest landscape gardeners. With their help we learn such things as why no flowers bloom in the tea garden, and why its paths are seldom straight; or why some scenery is best seen in passing from a boat rather than on dry land.

As a sequel to the acclaimed Landscapes for Small Spaces, this new appreciation of the traditional Japanese garden will give as much, if not more, pleasure, since part of its attraction is knowing that the gate into these gardens￯﾿ﾽwhich might otherwise be closed￯﾿ﾽis, in these pages, open to us all.

FROM THE CRITICS

Los Angeles Times

Between these elegant covers-and only here-readers are treated to some of Kyoto's most exquisite gardens that never open to the public.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

"If you favor Japanese garden styles, you will be impressed by the sweeps, use of stone, meticulous attention to detail and feel for nature the text and images convey."  — Washington Post

ACCREDITATION

The photographer: Katsuhiko Mizuno, born in Kyoto in 1941, graduated from Doshisha University and the Tokyo College of Photography. His camera has been focused on his historic home town since 1969. In 2000 he renovated a Kyoto townhouse said to date from the latter half of the Edo period, converting it into a museum housing his photographic works. He has published over 110 books, including the English-language Landscapes for Small Spaces (Kodansha International), which won a Gold Medal in the Foreword 2002 Book of the Year Awards.