Gardens of Gravel and Sand

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.