Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Exemplary Things: Meibutsu in Premodern Japan

Exemplary Things: Meibutsu in Premodern Japan

Guth, Christine M. E.

Paperback

Series: Publications of the Tang Center for East Asian Art, Princeton University

Art Criticism & TheoryJapanese HistoryJapanese Art

ISBN10: 0691274479
ISBN13: 9780691274478
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: Nov 11 2025
Pages: 208
Weight: 1.25
Height: 0.70 Width: 7.00 Depth: 10.10
Language: English

A beautifully illustrated history of one of the most important cultural categories in Japan

The Japanese term meibutsu refers to things of the highest cultural value, evolving over time to encompass both craft and fine art, high and low culture, and manufactured and natural items. Material goods designated as meibutsu range from precious art objects to regional products like bamboo baskets and ceramics. Exemplary Things traces the history of this epistemic classificatory system in Japanese culture from its elite origins in the fifteenth century to its commercial appropriation today.

Christine Guth explores the use of meibutsu to designate famous things (especially in the elevated context of tea practice), the term's institutionalization, and its popularization through print media and replicas (utsushi), and discusses how the term was used in critiques of the extravagance associated with collecting these costly treasures. She looks at the intertwined histories of meibutsu swords, incense, and tea utensils, focusing on their identities and agency as things with personal names. Guth explains how meibutsu evolved from a culture of tributes, taxes, and gift giving associated with a sense of place into a term essential to cultural literacy, and how Japan's modern legislation for the protection of its national treasures (kokuhō) drew on this legacy.

With stunning illustrations, Exemplary Things casts the art history of Japan in a new light, showing how the concept of meibutsu blurs the lines between economic value, cultural and aesthetic worth, and the furtherance of political power.

Published in association with the P. Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art at Princeton University

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