Weston visited Japan only once, in 1970, and produced the Japan portfolio that same year. Besides new subjects and textures, he was obviously fascinated with Japanese architecture, design, and calligraphy, and he seems also to have absorbed something of the style of Japanese art.

For example, in contrast to conventions of perspective in Western paintings, which tend to move horizontally and employ a single vanishing point, Japanese (and Chinese) landscape paintings tend to move or "read" from top to bottom (as does Japanese writing), and to employ ichnographic perspective, which has no single vanishing point and also implies a distant point of view.

Weston seems to give a nod to this Oriental aesthetic with the five landscapes he includes here. . . . In other words, Weston's personal artistic interests seem to mesh with the Japanese environment and the style of Japanese art. He was clearly fascinated with the new shapes and textures of Japan, and he rhymes these shapes and textures across the portfolio. 

—From the Afterword by Roger Aikin

12 1/2" x 12 1/2", 15 reproductions, 44 pages

View representative photographs.

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