Research outside Japan on the history and significance of the
Japanese visual arts since the beginning of the Meiji period (1868)
has been, with the exception of writings on modern and contemporary
woodblock prints, a relatively unexplored area of inquiry. In
recent years, however, the subject has begun to attract wide
interest. As is evident from this volume, this period of roughly a
century and a half produced an outpouring of art created in a
bewildering number of genres and spanning a wide range of aims and
accomplishments. Since Meiji is the first sustained effort in
English to discuss in any depth a time when Japan, eager to join in
the larger cultural developments in Europe and the U.S., went
through a visual revolution. Indeed, this study of the visual arts
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries suggests a fresh history
of modern Japanese culture--one that until now has not been widely
visible or thoroughly analyzed outside that country. In this
extensive collection, which includes some 190 black-and-white and
color reproductions, scholars from Japan, Europe, Australia, and
America explore an impressive array of subjects: painting,
sculpture, prints, fashion design, crafts, and gardens. The works
discussed range from early Meiji attempts to create art that
referenced Western styles to postwar and contemporary avant-garde
experiments. There are, in addition, substantive investigations of
the cultural and intellectual background that helped stimulate the
creation of new and shifting art forms, including essays on the
invention of a modern artistic vocabulary in the Japanese language
and the history of art criticism in Japan, as well as an extensive
account of the career and significance of perhaps the best-known
Japanese figure concerned with the visual arts of his period,
Okakura Tenshin (1862-1913), whose Book of Tea is still widely read
today. Taken together, the essays in this volume allow readers to
connect ideas and images, thus bringing to light larger trends in
the Japanese visual arts that have made possible the vitality,
range, and striking achievements created during this turbulent and
lively period. Contributors: Stephen Addiss, Chiaki Ajioka, John
Clark, Ellen Conant, Mikiko Hirayama, Michael Marra, Jonathan
Reynolds, J. Thomas Rimer, Audrey Yoshiko Seo, Eric C. Shiner,
Lawrence Smith, Shuji Tanaka, Reiko Tomii, Mayu Tsuruya, Toshio
Watanabe, Gennifer Weisenfeld, Bert Winther-Tamaki, Emiko
Yamanashi.
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