This text traces the progression of arts on the Japanese archipelago through periods open to foreign civilizations, and periods closed against all outside influence. The authors demonstrate how the native Shinto veneration of the forces in nature underlie the Japanese love of natural materials.

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This captivating gallery offers rare glimpses of Japanese culture during the early years of the 20th century. Drawn from popular women's magazines of the Taish period, its kuchi-e (frontispiece pictures) of bijin (beauties) represent a variety of artists, from the visual poetry of famous painters to more prosaic efforts by anonymous designers. Printed in the era's latest techniques of color lithography and offset printing, these kuchi-e bijin were created for mass production, yet they echo the form and appeal of woodblock prints from earlier generations. Their fashions are new enough to be exciting but sufficiently traditional to be reassuringly familiar. Embracing noble ideals and modern reality, the kuchi-e bijin suggest both the aspirations and the mundane truths of their audience, combining the sense of fine art and the sensibilities of popular illustration.
Kendall H. Brown is Associate Professor of Asian Art History at California State University, Long Beach. His informative captions and Preface explore the images' literary content, social context, and the technologies used in their production. A valuable resource for scholars of Japanese art and period book illustration, this volume is also of tremendous interest to anyone with an eye for beauty.

This handy reference book is perfect for anyone interested in Japanese art, whether they be art history students and enthusiasts or tourists visiting Japan. A comprehensive overview of the major trends in art throughout the history of Japan, Discovering the Arts of Japan includes a select bibliography and list of major museums housing collections of Japanese art. Handsomely presented and easy-to-use, this book offers a valuable introduction to the subject, and encourages further in-depth study of specific periods and art forms.

UKIYO-E -- "images from the floating world" -- were the most popular art-form of 19th century Japan. Like modern-day manga, these prints could be mass-produced and were admired by people from all sectors of society; and as in manga, the art of ukiyo-e included significant sub-genres dealing in violence, erotica and horror. With unflinching images of weird sex, bloody carnage and grotesque, demonic ghosts and monsters, "Dream Spectres" is a powerful collection of the extremes of ukiyo-e, featuring the work of such artists as Yoshitoshi, Ekin, Kunichika, Yoshiiku, Kunisada, Hokusai, Kuniyoshi, Yoshitsuya, Hiroshige, Kyosai, and Chikanobu. "Dream Spectres" features over 170 amazing full-colour images, including the complete Eimei Nijuhasshuku ("28 Blood Atrocities") of Yoshitoshi and Yoshiiku, and ranges in content from bondage and bestiality to decapitations, demons and designs for classic irezumi (body tattoos). This is Japanese art not only at its extremes of imagination, but often at its most highly accomplished and innovative. This new, revised, enlarged and expanded edition of "Dream Spectres" is presented in large-format and full-colour throughout. The Ukiyo-e Master Series: presenting seminal collections of art by the greatest print-designers and painters of Edo-period and Meiji-period Japan.

As the oldest and largest museum in Japan, the Tokyo National Museum houses a vast collection of culturally important artworks. Elegant Perfection highlights twenty-six masterpieces from this esteemed collection, and together these objects tell the story of the country's artistic development from the prehistoric Jō mon era through the 19th century. Essays by experts at the Tokyo National Museum offer insights into how Buddhist art evolved in Japan, and how the aesthetics valued by Japanese courtly society, initially influenced by Chinese Tang culture, gradually became more distinctly Japanese. Melissa McCormick contributes an essay that demonstrates the connections between the realms of courtly and religious art in Japan.

The featured works include exquisite examples of painting, sculpture, calligraphy, metalwork, ceramics, and lacquerware. Among them are an 11th-century inscribed poetry compilation, lacquered musical instruments, Edo-period ceramics produced for tea ceremonies, and Buddhist sculpture, painting, and ritual objects. This publication offers a rare opportunity to discover the history and significance of these treasured works of art.

In 1991 the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco formally accessioned twenty-seven unique works of Japanese art spanning 800 years of Japanese culture, from the late 11th through the mid-19th centuries. This catalog presents each work in its historical, cultural, and aesthetic contexts. Augmented photos enlarge details and supplement illustrations for comparison. The collection includes thirteen religious objects from the Heian through Muromachi periods, and fourteen secular objects mainly of the Edo period. It encompasses sculptures, paintings, calligraphy, and scrolls.

The Floating World by novelist James A. Michener is a classic work on the Japanese print of the Edo period (1615-1868). Mr. Michener shows how the Japanese printmakers, cut off from revivifying contacts with the art of the rest of the world and hampered by their own governmental restrictions, were able to keep their art vital for two centuries through their vigor and determination.