Chronology of Japanese History

Jōmon period, ca. 10500–300 BCE

Yayoi period, 300 BCE–300 CE
Kofun (Tumulus) period, 300–552
Asuka period, 552–645
Early Nara (Hakuhō) period, 645–710
Nara period, 710–794
Heian period, 794–1185
Kamakura period, 1185–1336
Nanbokuchō period, 1336–1392
Muromachi period, 1392–1568
Momoyama period, 1568–1615
Edo (Tokugawa) period, 1615–1868
Meiji period, 1868–1912
Taishō period, 1912–1926
Shōwa period, 1926–1989
Heisei period, 1989–

Notes on Japanese Word and Name Usage

Japanese proper names are listed in traditional order
throughout the text, with surnames preceding given names,
without commas separating names. References to publications
by Japanese authors writing in English and contemporary
Japanese individuals active in the West, who prefer to have
their names listed Western style, are provided with surnames
following given names, or surnames listed first and separated
by commas from given names, as per standard Western
nomenclature. Following customary usage, pre-modern
individuals are referred to by their given names and those of
the modern and contemporary eras (those born after 1868)
by their surnames.

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 JAPANESE
DESIGN Art, Aesthetics & Culture

PATRICIA J. GRAHAM

T UT T L E Publishing

Tokyo Rutland, Vermont Singapore

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 006 The Enduring Allure of Japanese Design

008 CHAPTER ONE

THE AESTHETICS OF JAPANESE DESIGN
012 KATSURA Refined Rusticity in Architectural Design
016 SHIBUI Subtle Elegance
020 WABI AND SABI Rustic and Withered Elegance
024 IKI Stylish, Sophisticated Elegance
028 MIYABI AND FŪRYŪ Opulent and Stylish Elegance
032 KAREI Sumptuous Elegance
contents 036 KABUKU AND BASARA Outlandish Elegance
040 MA An Interval in Time and Space
044 NŌTAN The Dark–Light Principle
046 MINGEI Japanese Folk Crafts
050 RINPA Decorative Art of the Kōrin School
054 KAZARI Modes of Decoration and Display
060 JAPANESE DESIGN A Visual Primer Featuring Contemporary Arts

066 CHAPTER TWO

THE CULTURAL PARAMETERS

OF JAPANESE DESIGN
070 RELIGIOUS VALUES AND JAPANESE DESIGN
071 The Aesthetic Dimensions of Shinto
073 Buddhist Influences on Japanese Aesthetics

080 DESIGN IN JAPANESE CULTURE: TEN KEY CHARACTERISTICS

080 1. Relationship Between Fine Arts and Crafts
083 2. Emphasis on Craftsmanship and Technological Innovation
087 3. Beauty in Miniaturization and Detailed Workmanship
088 4. Importance of Artistic Lineages and Teamwork
089 5. Linkages Between Literary and Visual Arts
094 6. Appreciation of Changing Seasons
098 7. Rituals Order Daily Life
104 8. Penchant for Emotional Extremes
108 9. Distinctions in Local and Regional Culture
110 10. Fashion Consciousness Inspires Innovation

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 112 CHAPTER THREE
EARLY PROMOTERS OF ‘‘ARTISTIC JAPAN’’ 1830 S –1950 S
118 ARTISTS AND ART PROFESSORS
John La Farge, Henry Pike Bowie, Denman Waldo Ross, Arthur Wesley Dow
122 ART DEALERS
Siegfred Bing, Marcus Huish
124 SCIENTISTS AND PHYSICIANS
Phillip Franz von Siebold, Edward Sylvester Morse, Percival Lowell
127 INDUSTRIAL DESIGNERS AND ARCHITECTS
Christopher Dresser, Josiah Conder, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bruno Taut
132 JOURNALISTS
Frank (Captain Francis) Brinkley, Lafcadio Hearn
134 PHILOSOPHERS
Ernest Fenollosa, Okakura Kakuzō, D. T. (Daisetsu Teitaro) Suzuki, Yanagi Sōetsu
139 ART HISTORIANS AND ART CRITICS
James Jackson Jarves, Philippe Burty, Théodore Duret,
Louis Gonse, Sadakichi Hartmann, Laurence Binyon,
nyon,
Langdon Warner, Harada Jirō, Tsuda Noritake
148 THE LEGACY OF THE EARLY WRITERS

150 Glossary
152 Endnotes
156 Acknowledgments
157 Further Reading
158 Index

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 6 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

PREFACE
The Enduring Allure of Japanese Design

Felice Beato (Italian, 1832–1909),

Japanese curio shop, 1868. Hand-
colored albumen photograph,
20 x 26 cm. New York Public Library,
Photography Collection. Beato
produced what are now considered
iconic photographs of the people,
places, and scenery of Japan during
his stay in Yokohama between 1863
and 1884. He was the most com-
mercially successful of the early
photographers in Japan, many of
whom compiled photos into albums
to sell to foreign tourists.

Everything Japanese is delicate, exquisite, The journalist Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904) wrote
admirable.... Curiosities and dainty objects these comments in an essay reflecting on his first day
bewilder you by their very multitude: On in Japan in 1890. They encapsulate the continued attrac-
either side of you, wherever you turn your tion of Japanese arts and crafts for Westerners, from

eyes, are countless wonderful things as yet

his time to the present day.
Hearn was but one of innumerable Westerners of
incomprehensible. But it is perilous to look
the nineteenth century who fell in love with Japan’s
at them.... The shopkeeper never asks you
material culture and with the spirit of the country’s
to buy; but his wares are enchanted, and
people. He and other admirers recognized that Japan’s
if you once begin buying you are lost.
diverse arts and crafts, buildings, and gardens, from
Cheapness means only a temptation to small trinkets to imposing architectural marvels, even
commit bankruptcy; for the resources of those created centuries apart from greatly varying media,
irresistible artistic cheapness are possessed special qualities that made them attractive,
inexhaustible. and as he said, irresistible to the Western public. As
Lafcadio Hearn, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan 1
we now have come to understand, the appeal of these

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 T H E E N D U R I N G A L L U R E O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N 7

Japanese arts is based on a very specific set of design the evolution of understanding of Japanese design from
sensibilities that have a basis in fine craftsmanship tied the nineteenth century to the present, its ever-growing,
to the particularities of the culture that instilled certain widespread, popular appeal, and emphasizes how
values in their makers. important Japanese design has been to ongoing theo-
This book is intended to supplement the large exist- retical conceptualizations of global design history. The
ing body of literature on Japanese design and related chapter discusses the varied, and sometimes divergent,
aesthetic concepts, mainly for audiences unfamiliar with perspectives of twenty-eight individuals who wrote
discourses on these subjects within Japan or the schol- about the subject—artists and art educators, scientists
arly community, framing the topic from a slightly dif- and physicians, industrial designers and architects,
ferent perspective than that of previous writers. It does art historians and art critics, and philosophers—both
not present a historical overview; many writers, both Japanese nationals and foreigners, from the nineteenth
Japanese and foreign, have already done that. Nor does century to the first half of the twentieth century. These
it give emphasis to any particular artistic medium or writers were the first to promote Japanese art, crafts,
discuss the development of Japanese art styles within a gardens, and architecture, primarily in the West.
chronological framework or introduce lineages of artists This book culminates many years of thinking about
in any detail. Instead, its chapters explore three inter- ways to introduce Japanese arts and design to college
related issues: the components that comprise Japan’s students, museum visitors, and travelers to Japan un-
design aesthetics, including their formal characteristics; familiar with Japanese language and cultural history.
the cultural factors that led to their creation; and the My approach has its genesis in my study of the Japanese
individuals, both foreign and Japanese writers, who art collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, ini-
have been responsible for creating worldwide aware- tially assembled in the early 1930s by Langdon Warner
ness of this significant Japanese contribution to world (1881–1955), one of the early writers about Japanese
cultural heritage. design whom I profile on page 144, and by subsequent
The first chapter clarifies the meaning of the most Asian curators there—Laurence Sickman (1907–1988)
significant and widely used Japanese language aesthetic and Marc Wilson. I first studied that collection as a
and design terms today, most of which only became graduate student in the late 1970s, lectured about it
common terminology in Western literature from the to docents and the general public from the mid-1980s
1960s. It also includes a visual survey of the ten most through the 1990s, and formally surveyed, and then re-
significant formal elements of Japanese design, using installed it in the museum’s permanent Japanese screen
contemporary arts to illustrate how centuries-old design gallery between 1998 and 2001. Sections of Chapters
principles continue to inform the appearance of many One and Two were also published earlier, in greatly
types of contemporary Japanese arts. The second modified form, in an essay for a textbook on Asian art
chapter identifies the cultural parameters of Japanese for use in college classes about Asian studies produced
design, revealing how the structure of Japanese society by the AsiaNetwork Consortium. I am grateful to the
has contributed to the formation of cultural values late Joan O’Mara for involving me in that project which
that impact the appearance of Japan’s design aesthet- encouraged my expansion of that essay into this book.2
ics and how Japanese society impels its artists, crafts My hope is that Japanese Design will entice readers to
makers, and designers to approach the production of explore the subject further on their own.
their arts the ways they do. The last chapter highlights Patricia J. Graham

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 CHAPTER ONE
THE AESTHETICS OF
JAPANESE DESIGN

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 10 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

Emerging from the devastation of World War II, Japan entered an Plate 1-1 (right top left) Butterfly Stool, 1956.
Designed by Yanagi Sōri (1915–2011); manu-
intense period of reconstruction in the 1950s. By the early 1960s,
factured by Tendo Mokko Co., Tendo, Japan.
the country’s economic ascension was assured, propelled in large
Plywood, rosewood, and brass, 37.9 x 42.9 x
part by international successes in design-related industries.1 At that 31.8 cm. Saint Louis Art Museum. Gift of Denis
time, Japan’s long engagement with fine design and its sophisticated Gallion and Daniel Morris, 82: 1994. This iconic
stool epitomizes the melding of East and West
aesthetic concepts were attracting the interest of scholars, journal-
design sensibilities in the early post-war years.
ists, and museum curators in the West, who consistently used
The stool form and its material (bentwood
Japanese aesthetic terminology to describe the subject in books, plywood) are Western in derivation but the
popular magazines, and engaging exhibitions. This trend continues elegant, arching shape derives from a Japanese
proclivity for fluid, playful forms. Its designer,
today. Usage of these Japanese words has proliferated for several
Yanagi Sōri, was the son of Yanagi Sōetsu (see
reasons: many of the post-war foreign authors possess deeper
page 138), founder of the mingei movement.
knowledge of Japanese culture and linguistic competence than most Like his father, he championed the beauty of
of their predecessors; they have close connections with leading functional, everyday objects.

individuals in Japanese design communities; or they conduct

Plate 1-3 (right bottom) International House
research in collaboration with Japanese scholars who write about
of Japan, Tokyo, Japan. Designed by Maekawa
design issues. Kunio (1905–1986), Sakakura Junzō (1901–
This new post-war spirit of international cultural cooperation is 1969), and Yoshimura Junzō (1908–1997);
originally completed in 1955; expanded in 1976
nowhere more evident than in the mission of the International
using Maekawa’s design; extensively restored
House of Japan, a non-profit organization headquartered in Tokyo.
and updated in 2005 by Mitsubishi Jisho Sekkei
The I-House, as it is affectionately known, was founded in 1952 Inc. Photo courtesy of the International House of
with support from the Rockefeller Foundation and other groups and Japan. The adjacent garden, which predates the
building, was completed in 1929 by famed
individuals to promote “cultural exchange and intellectual coopera-
Kyoto garden designer Ogawa Jihei VII
tion between the peoples of Japan and those of other countries.”2
(1860–1933), also known as Ueji, for the building
This chapter introduces the most important and frequently that formerly sat on the site, a Japanese-style
deployed expressions describing Japanese design principles. It begins mansion built by samurai feudal lords of the
Kyogoku clan. The 1955 building, although
with a discussion of the omnipresent influence of the Katsura
constructed of modern materials, was designed,
Imperial Villa in the early post-war period. Subsequent sections on
in the spirit of pre-modern Japanese residences
individual words describe the history and continued evolution of to harmonize with its garden. One of its most
their usage, introduce several overarching frameworks to help make unusual features is its “green” rooftop, plantings
that integrate the garden and the building.
sense of Japan’s wide variety of design principles, and offer a visual
primer of contemporary arts that encapsulate the principles of
these terms.

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 Plate 1-2 (above) Soy sauce container, 1958.
Designed by Mori Masahiro (b. 1927); manu-
factured by Hakusan Porcelain Company,
Hasami-machi, Nagasaki, Japan. Glazed
porcelain, height 8 cm. Although a traditionally
trained potter, Mori, in 1956, joined Hakusan
Co. and embarked on a career that revolu-
tionized the design of functional, mass-
produced tableware.3 This classic soy sauce
container, with its clean lines and graceful
shape, remains in production today.

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 12 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

KATSURA
REFINED RUSTICIT Y IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

interconnected residential buildings

in a formal style called shoin (literally
“study hall”), originally a chamber
designed as a study or lecture hall in a
temple or private mansion that by the
early seventeenth century had evolved
into a formal reception room in a great
The Katsura Imperial Villa, near house (Plates 1-6, 3-16), and several
Kyoto, provides an excellent path into detached tea houses in an informal
an understanding of principles of style known as sukiya (literally “the
Japanese design. It is widely regarded abode of refinement”), a small, private
as the quintessential embodiment place for contemplation and partici-
of the culture’s highly refined and pation in the chanoyu tea ceremony
understated aesthetic sensibility. The (Plates 1-5 a & b). The buildings were
buildings and surrounding grounds all sited within a beautifully manicured
radiate a quiet, graceful presence that Japanese stroll garden. Katsura is the
demonstrates how attuned the Japanese culmination of a style of residential
are to the beauty of nature, and how retreat first constructed in the late
they are able to transform that beauty fourteenth century by samurai rulers
to their own purposes. Its finely and aristocrats (the Kinkakuji Pavilion,
constructed parts reveal the Japanese Plate 3-31, is a forerunner), and though
artisans’ careful attention to detail and it was not the last such abode to be
sensitive, but calculated, use of natural erected (another example is the
materials. The complex was built over a Rikugien Garden, Plate 3-14), it is
fifty-year period by two princes of the undoubtedly the finest and the best
Hachijō family, Toshihito (1579–1629) preserved because of its association
and his son Toshitada (1619–1662), with the imperial court.
son and grandson of an emperor and Beginning in the 1930s, both
advisors to the then current imperial Japanese and foreign architects who
monarch. Toshitada’s marriage into adopted modernist design principles
the wealthy and powerful Maeda began to appreciate traditional Japanese
warrior clan enabled him to continue residential design. Publications and
improving the estate after his father’s lectures at that time by Bruno Taut
death. Katsura consists of a series of (1880–1938; see page 130) promoted

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N K AT S U R A 13

Plate 1-4 (below) Central gate at

the Katsura Imperial Villa, complex
completed ca. 1663. Photo: David M.
Dunfield, December 2007. The rustic
rush and bamboo fence that leads
to a humble looking thatched gate
was probably once the compound’s
main entrance.

it as the archetype of traditional

Japanese residential architectural
design. These architects particularly
admired the flexibility and compact-
ness of its spaces, the finely crafted
details and structural elements made
from natural materials, the modular
design of building parts, the integral
relationships between the buildings’
forms and their structures and between
the buildings and surrounding gardens.
It was not until the immediate
post-war period, however, that
appreciation for Katsura truly took
hold, largely through photographs in a
seminal English language publication
of 1960, jointly authored by architects
Walter Gropius (1883–1969) and
Tange Kenzō (1913–2005).4 The book
features beautiful, and now iconic,
black and white photographs taken in
1953 by American-born photographer,
Ishimoto Yasuhiro (1921–2012). These
images interpreted Katsura in abstract
geometric forms fitting the authors’
modernist ideology. Tange famously
cropped them to suit his architectural
vision.5 Ishimoto first visited Katsura
in 1953 when he was accompanying
Arthur Drexler (1926–1987), archi-
tect and long-time curator of the
Department of Architecture and
Design at the Museum of Modern Art,
New York, on a fact-finding trip to

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 Plate 1-5 a & b (left above and below) Interior
and exterior views of the Shokintei Teahouse
at the Katsura Imperial Villa, complex
completed ca. 1663. Photograph above
© amasann/photolibrary.jp. Photograph
below © Sam Dcruz/Shutterstock.com. This
structure is a classic example of the sukiya
shoin architectural style.

Plate 1-6 (below right) Moon viewing platform

of the old shoin buildings at the Katsura Imperial
Villa, complex completed ca. 1663. Photo-
graph © shalion/photolibrary.jp. The moon
viewing platform in the foreground extends
from the open veranda to join the old shoin
to the adjacent garden.

Japan in preparation for a landmark His more recent publication reassesses

exhibition of Japanese architecture at previous studies and includes reprints
MoMA in 1955. For that exhibition, of major essays by Taut, Gropius, Tange,
Yoshimura Junzō, one of the architects and others.7 He noted that Katsura “does
of the International House of Japan, not have a dominant form or style that
who accompanied Ishimoto and Drexler can be clearly defined in both its archi-
to Katsura, was commissioned to design tecture and garden, a number of meth-
a traditional Japanese residential ods are intermingled. Therefore, any
building for MoMA’s courtyard (the discourse on Katsura finally confronts
building, Shofuso, now resides in the task of expounding on the signifi-
Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park), funded cance of the ambiguity created by the
by John D. Rockefeller, III. mix.”8 Isozaki concluded that Katsura
Katsura has continued to attract the needs to be appreciated “not as a trans-
interest of younger Japanese architects, parently and systematically organized
and one of the profession’s post-war space in the sense of the modernists, but
leaders, Isozaki Arata (b. 1931), a dis- as a contingent, confused, ambiguous,
ciple of Tange, has authored two books over-layered, and opaque composition
on the subject. The first, published [that] induces a gorgeous pleasure in
in Japanese in 1983 and in English the space. The pleasure goes beyond or
translation in 1987, included new color perhaps swallows all kinds of discourses.
photographs by Ishimoto that presented The secret of Katsura’s myth-provoking
Katsura in a very different light.6 function exists there.”9

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N K AT S U R A 15

Plate 1-7 (left) View of the veranda of

the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura
(Kanagawa Kenritsu Kindai Bijutsukan),
1951. Designed by Sakakura Junzō
(1901–1969). Sakakura had worked for
Le Corbusier in the 1930s. Despite its
construction out of the modern materials
of stone, concrete, and steel, Sakakura’s
admiration for the Katsura Imperial Villa
is evident in this building’s deep veranda
and slender pillars set into stone supports.
This museum building was the first
significant public architecture in Japan
after World War II.

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 16 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

SHIBUI
SUBTLE ELEGANCE

Shibui, the adjective form of the

noun shibusa or shibumi, has the
literal meaning of something pos-
sessing an astringent taste. Its usage
dates back to the Muromachi period.
By the seventeenth century, the
term had come to describe a distinct
sense of beauty, understated and
well crafted, exquisite but not overly
sweet, the opposite of showiness or
gaudiness. The word conveys a sense
of elegance and refinement, sophisti-
cated simplicity, tranquility, natural
imperfection, and modesty. It is
closely associated with the wabi-sabi
Plate 1-8 (above) Advertisement for Schumacher’s aesthetics of the Japanese tea cere-
Shibui decorating fabrics and coordinated paints mony of chanoyu, and is often used
by Martin Senour, published in House Beautiful
interchangeably with the word suki
102/9 (September 1960), p. 66. Elizabeth
Gordon encouraged selected home furnishing
that is used to describe the aesthetic
and paint companies to manufacture “Shibui” of tea rooms (sukiya).
lines of products. Katsura figured prominently
in the mind of Elizabeth Gordon
(1906–2000), editor-in-chief of
House Beautiful magazine from 1941
to 1964, when she set out to explain
the beauty of Japanese design and its
relevance to the modern American
lifestyle in two issues of her maga-
zine (August and September 1960).
In fact, she used images of the
complex on the cover of both these
issues, declaring in the caption for
the photograph of the main shoin
buildings on the first issue’s cover

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N SHIBUI 17

Plate 1-9 (below) Lobby of the Okura Hotel, Tokyo, 1962.

Designed by Taniguchi Yoshiro (1904–1979). Unchanged
since the time of its design, this quietly elegant room, with
its white paper shōji screens accented with finely textured
and patterned latticework, and pale wood ceiling and wall
surfaces, reflects a contemporary interpretation of the shibui
aesthetic in Japanese architectural design of the 1960s,
influenced by interest then in the Katsura Imperial Villa.

that Katsura was “a distillation of

all that is most beautiful in Japanese
architecture, gardening, and interi-
ors—a fitting first glimpse of an issue
devoted to an interpretation of Japan
and its centuries-old concepts of
beauty expressed in all facets of daily
life.”10 Gordon used the Japanese
word shibui, which she described
as “easy-to-live-with beauty,” as her
overarching theme for these issues,
titling the first, “Shibui—The Word
for the Highest Level of Beauty,” and
the second, “How to Be Shibui with
American Things.” Following on the
success of these issues, she organized
a traveling exhibition on shibui that
toured eleven American museums
between 1961 and 1964.
Because Elizabeth Gordon was
responsible for making this word,
and related aesthetic concepts, the
linchpin of the Japanese aesthetic
vocabulary in the West, it is worth
discussing why she chose to fea-
ture shibui and Japanese aesthetics
generally in her magazine. Her initial
interest in Japanese design followed
her exposure to Japanese furnishings
in the homes of Americans who had
been in Japan during the early post-
war Occupation period and the con-
current permeation of Japanese goods
into the American marketplace. As

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 18 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

The Sumiya, located in Kyoto’s historic Shimabara entertainment district, is the finest extant example of an Edo period ageya,
an elegant restaurant and banquet hall where the highest ranking geisha (taiyū) entertained affluent male clients. Originally
constructed in 1641, it was greatly expanded in 1787. Elizabeth Gordon prominently featured many illustrations of its rooms and
architectural details in her August 1960 House Beautiful issue on shibui, though there she described it as “a famous Kyoto residence …
now open to the public … a good example of the shoin style of architecture.”18 Although related aesthetically to Katsura, the Sumiya’s
greater opulence derives from its function. In fact, it combined in a single structure both sukiya and shoin elements, which are seen
in separate buildings at Katsura.

Plate 1-10 (left) Interior

of the Ajiro no Ma (Net
Pattern Room) on the
first floor of the Sumiya
banquet hall, Shimabara
licensed district, Kyoto.
The room takes its name
from the interlocking
lattice pattern of the
wooden ceiling planks.

editor of a prominent magazine for Gordon’s highlighting of shibui Gordon’s presentation of shibui
style-conscious readers, she wanted was also tied to critiques of post- was remarkably sophisticated,
her magazine not only to reflect war American affluence raised by derived from her steadfast study of
current fashions but to set them. A economist John Kenneth Galbraith Japanese culture over a five-year
staunch advocate of a more comfort- (1908–2006) in his popular book, period preceding her magazine’s
able alternative to the rigid anonym- The Affluent Society.12 Just months feature issues in 1960. Her research
ity of orthodox modernist architec- after that book’s release, Gordon edi- included four field trips to Japan
ture, Gordon initiated a “Pace Setter torialized about it in the November during 1959 and 1960, totaling
House” program in 1946 to showcase 1958 issue of House Beautiful, sixteen months.15 She became
modern-style houses that she deemed maintaining that “[t]aste, discrimi- acquainted with or quoted many
humanistic and livable.11 Her attitude nation, and a maturing sense of authorities in her magazine, includ-
was much influenced by Frank Lloyd appropriateness” was what she saw in ing Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904;
Wright (1867–1959; see page 130) the “homes of America.”13 As Robert see page 133) and Yanagi Sōetsu
and his concept of organic architec- Hobbs has observed, “[o]ver the next (1889–1961; see page 138), whom
ture. Indeed, two key members of her few years, her magazine embarked she met in Tokyo in December 1959
editorial team when she produced on an educational campaign to teach and whose definition of shibui she
her Japan issues, Curtis Besinger its readership to “discern differ- paraphrased at length.16 She also
(1914–1999) and John DeKoven ences between ostentation and true met or corresponded with a number
Hill (1920–1996), were disciples of value.”14 This was the conceptual of high-profile Japanese design
Wright. basis for her emphasis on shibui. professionals, including architect

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 19

Yoshimura Junzō, one of the Plate 1-11 (above left) The inner courtyard Plate 1-13 (top) Transom (ranma) partition in

designers of the International House garden adjacent to the Ajiro no Ma at the Sumiya. the Matsu no Ma (Pine Viewing Room) at the
Sumiya banquet hall, Shimabara licensed district,
of Japan.
Plate 1-12 (above right) View of the main room Kyoto. Elizabeth Gordon commented on this
Although she titled her House
and garden at the Shisendō, the former residence wooden grille attached to the ceiling, a
Beautiful issue “Shibui,” she also of the scholar Ishikawa Jōzan, constructed in common interior architectural element that
introduced many other related 1641. As described in House Beautiful, when allows for ventilation and light between rooms.
Japanese aesthetic terms that she opened for the summer to its adjacent garden, Note the elegant cloud-shaped metal nail-head
described as either dependent upon the exposed framework of this sukiya shoin-style covers at the post-and-beam junctures.
house reveals how the interior rooms function
shibui (wabi-sabi, for example) or
as one large open space.19 Plate 1-14 left) Sakura (cherry) bark tea caddy,
as expressing what she described as
made in Kakunodate, Akita, Japan. Beech wood
less exalted forms of beauty: hade covered with waxed cherry bark, height 11.5
(bright and exuberant beauty), iki cm. The lustrous natural wood finish of this
(chic and sophisticated beauty), and traditional craft of northern Japan radiates
jimi (somber and proper beauty).17 a quiet beauty much admired by Elizabeth
Gordon, who included several of these caddies
in her House Beautiful issues on shibui.

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 20 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

WABI AND SABI

RUSTIC AND WITHERED ELEGANCE

Indeed, all the early wabi tea masters Difficult to translate, wabi and
were devout Zen Buddhists. How- sabi are today acclaimed, along with
ever, aesthetic values implicit in shibui and suki, as the “essence of
wabi and sabi already existed prior Japanese beauty.”21 Wabi means deso-
to Zen’s introduction to Japan. The late or lonely, and embodies appre-
word sabi appeared in Japan’s earli- ciation of a rustic beauty in natural
est native language (waka) poetry imperfections, and celebrates the
The words wabi and sabi have been anthology of the eighth century, noble spirit of poverty and humil-
closely linked to the aesthetics of the Manyōshū (Collection of Ten ity. Sabi means rusted, lonesome,
the chanoyu tea ceremony since the Thousand Leaves), where it described or dreary, and aesthetically evokes
time of Murata Shukō (1421?-1502). a wistful melancholia for exqui- sorrow for the fragility of life.
He described his preferences for site beauty that vanished with the
using as tea wares inexpensive, vicissitudes of time. By the eleventh
locally made utilitarian vessels century, this sentiment came to be
(instead of more finely wrought expressed with the term mono no
Chinese objects) as wabi-suki, an aware (the “pathos of things”). A
expression that, by the seventeenth fourteenth-century Kamakura period
century, had evolved into the phrase courtly poet and Buddhist hermit,
wabi-cha (poverty tea). His follow- Yoshida Kenkō (1283?–1350?),
ers, Takeno Jōō (1502–1555) and made this aesthetic the basis of his
Sen no Rikyū (1521–1591), perfected influential Tsurezuregusa (Essays
and popularized this tea aesthetic, in Idleness), and his writing was
which remains closely associated well known and quoted by the early
with chanoyu today.20 Objects used chanoyu tea masters.
for wabi-style tea ceremonies,
although seemingly simple and
humble in appearance, are among
the most costly and desirable tea
ceremony products of all.
The origin of the wabi style of
chanoyu is usually described as
emerging from Zen Buddhism’s
philosophy of worldly detachment,
simplicity, purity, and humility.

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N WA B I A N D S A B I 21

Plate 1-15 (opposite right)

Machiai (waiting shelter) in a tea
house garden, early 20th century,
Toyama Memorial Museum,
Kawashima, Hiki-gun, Saitama
Prefecture. Guests reach the
tea house by passing through
a garden laid out along a path
(roji) designed as a transition
space between the everyday
world and the sanctuary of the
tea room. The main architectural
feature within these gardens is a
small rustic shelter (machiai), a
bench protected by three walls,
and an open front. There, guests
wait to enter the tea room or
rest during gaps between tea
services.

Plate 1-16 (opposite left) Stone

water basin in the garden of the
Jōnangu Shrine, Kyoto. Within tea
gardens, guests stop to purify
their hands and mouth at a
stone water basin (chōzubachi),
often of a type placed low to
the ground (tsukubai) and
sometimes, as here, formed from
a natural boulder. In addition,
this basin features a bamboo
pipe (suikinkutsu) through which
water courses and hits the basin
with a pleasing, splashing sound,
creating an aural component to
the experience.

Plate 1-17 (right) Tea room at the

Rakusuien, Fukuoka, 1995. Tea
gardens lead guests along a path
to the tea house where they
enter via a nijiri guchi, a small
“crawl door” through which they
must bow to enter.

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 22

Plate 1-18 a & b (right, above and below)

Two views of the four and a half tatami
mat tea room in the “Kitchen House” of
artist Jinzenji Yoshiko, Kyoto, Japan,
2008. Designed by Ms Jinzenji. This
small contemporary tea room evokes
purity in keeping with the principles
of wabi and sabi, evident in the muted
coloration of the earthen walls, the
unpainted wooden ceiling slats and
posts, and a naturally twisted tree
trunk to the right of the tokonoma
alcove. The weathered looking
leather-covered zabuton cushions
and the light streaming through the
paper-covered shōji sliding doors
impart an air of modernity.

Plate 1-19 (below) Karatsu ware tea

bowl of the Okugōrai (Old Korean) type,
late 16th–early 17th century. Glazed
stoneware, 7.6 x 14 cm. The Nelson-
Atkins Museum of Art, 32-62/6. Photo:
Joshua Ferdinand. Yanagi Sōetsu
described the wabi-sabi beauty found
in tea bowls as “the beauty of the
imperfect and the beauty that
deliberately rejects the perfect …
a beauty lurking within.”29 Chanoyu
tea bowls endowed with wabi-sabi
aesthetics generally lack decorative
embellishment and emphasize the
tactile forms of the bowls themselves
with natural or minimal application
of glazes in subdued, earthy colors.
The understated beauty of Karatsu tea
bowls are among those most revered
by chanoyu tea masters. The long,
natural drip of glaze at the front of
this magnificent bowl is particularly
cherished. (For other tea bowls, see
Plates 2-30 and 2-37.)

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N WA B I A N D S A B I 23

Plate 1-20 (right) Detail of the perimeter wall at Shōfukuji, Fukuoka,

Japan’s first Zen temple, founded in Japan in 1195. Made of mud
embedded with old broken clay tiles and rocks for structural
support, walls like this are a common sight at Japanese Zen
temples and traditional residences, especially in the Fukuoka area,
when they were first made during the late sixteenth century as
part of reconstruction efforts after Japan’s conflicts with the
Korean peninsula. Their incorporation of old and broken pieces
of roof tiles expresses the aesthetic of sabi.

Plate 1-21 (far right) Moss-covered garden lantern at the Ōkōchi

Sansō Villa, Arashiyama, Kyoto. This lantern, old at the time it was
installed in its present location in the garden surrounding the villa
of the Japanese film actor Ōkōchi Denjirō (1898–1962), helps to
infuse the estate grounds with the spirit of wabi and sabi.

Westerners first became enamored Influenced by Yanagi, Elizabeth for Artists, Designers, Poets and
with the aesthetic concepts of wabi Gordon helped to popularize the Philosophers, which contrasted
and sabi through the writings of concepts through her inclusion of a Japanese and Western ideals of
Okakura Kakuzō (see page 136), short article about them in her House beauty.26 They “became a talking
especially The Book of Tea (1906), Beautiful magazine Shibui issue, point for a wasteful culture intent
in which he explained how chanoyu where she explained wabi and sabi on penitence and a touchstone for
owed its values to Zen Buddhist as underlying principles of shibui.24 designers of all stripes, including
monastic practices. Okakura did Gordon noted the presence of sabi in some makers of luxury goods.”27
not use the words wabi and sabi, gardens that possess a “tranquil and More recently, these words have
however. Instead, he described these serene atmosphere,” and wabi as a been applied to a wide variety of
aesthetics as “Zennism.” Writing design concept in which “nothing is crafts, fine arts, commercial prod-
several decades later, D. T. Suzuki over-emphasized or extravagant or ucts, architectural designs, and
(1870–1966; see page 137) avowed exaggerated.” She further noted that even interpersonal relationships.28
these same values in his book, Zen “the humility in wabi, the hint of Clearly, usage of these terms has
and Japanese Culture, where he sadness in the recognition of strayed far from their original
defined wabi as “the worshipping of perfection in any human achieve- meanings. Nowadays, it has become
poverty” and sabi as “rustic unpre- ment, springs from the knowledge popular to associate wabi-sabi with
tentiousness or archaic imperfection, that with the bloom of time comes virtually anything having abbrevi-
apparent simplicity or effortless- the first embrace of oblivion.”25 ated and suggestive qualities, and
ness in execution, and richness in The words wabi and sabi are products created from rustic and
historical associations.”22 Yanagi perhaps the most familiar, and also tactile, seemingly old, natural
Sōetsu (see page 138), champion of overused, Japanese aesthetic terms materials.
Japan’s folk art aesthetics, also wrote in the present day. Leonard Koren
about wabi and sabi, describing them (b. 1948), a consultant and prolific
as a hidden “irregular,” and imper- writer specializing in design and
fect beauty, and also linked them to aesthetics, helped to popularize these
shibui.23 words in his 1994 book Wabi-Sabi

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N IKI 25

IKI
ST YLISH, SOPHISTICATED ELEGANCE

The aesthetic of iki, first noted in Plate 1-22 (opposite) Kitagawa

writings of the second half of the Utamaro (1753?–1806), Folding Fan

Seller, Round Fan Seller, Barley
eighteenth century, described the
Pounder (Ogi Uri, Uchiwa Uri, Mugi
taste preferences of the most
Tsuki), from the series Female Geisha
sophisticated men and women Section of the Yoshiwara Niwaka
participants (clients, geisha, and Festival (Seiro niwaka onna geisha no
Kabuki actors) of the thriving bu). Polychrome woodblock print,
entertainment quarters, called the ink and color on paper with mica
ground, 37.5 x 24.8 cm. The
Ukiyo or “Floating World,” of Japan’s
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
urban centers, particularly Edo
Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase:
(Tokyo), Osaka, and Kyoto (see also William Rockhill Nelson Trust,
Plate 3-6). It celebrated the dynamic 32-143/139. Photo: Mel McLean.
sense of coquetry that defined their In this print, a genre known as
amorous but strained interrelation- mitate (humorous visual allusions to
classical themes in ukiyoe prints), a
ships, and captured the boldness and
group of geisha entertain attendees
joie de vivre attitude with which they
at a festival by parodying various
lived under the specter of a politi- types of merchants.
cally repressive military regime. This
Plate 1-23 (right) Katsukawa
sensibility was manifested visually in
Shunshō (1726–1792), The Kabuki
their tasteful, finely made clothing, Actor Ichikawa Danjūro V in the Role
refined accoutrements, and the of Gokuin Senuemon, 1782, from a
elegantly appointed banquet halls set of five prints showing actors in
and tea rooms they frequented, roles from the play Karigane Gonin
Iki was one of the aesthetic words (Karigane Five Men). Polychrome
woodblock print, ink and color
briefly mentioned by Elizabeth
on paper, 30.8 x 14.8 cm. The Nelson-
Gordon in her shibui issue of House Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City,
Beautiful, which she described as Missouri. Purchase: William Rockhill
“stylish, à la mode, smart…, [the Nelson Trust, 32-143/71 A. Photo:
Japanese] equivalent of France’s Tiffany Matson. Kuki Shūzō
chic.”30 It has more recently been commented that purely geometric
designs, especially those featuring
translated as “urbane, plucky
parallel lines which created patterns
stylishness.”31 of vertical stripes, as seen in the
Although Gordon regarded kimono design of this actor, express
shibui as the highest category of the essence of iki.32

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 26 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

refined beauty, not all critics agree. in charge of cultural institutions, Kuki Shūzō wrote his seminal work,
Widespread Japanese intellectual had served as mentor to Okakura The Structure of Iki (Iki no kōzō),
interest in promoting iki as an aes- Kakuzō (see page 136). Kuki Shūzō’s while living in Paris in 1926 and
thetic that represented the essential mother, a former geisha who eventu- published it in Japan in 1930. It is
spirit of the Japanese people had ally divorced his father, had carried no coincidence that the European
arisen in the early twentieth century, on a romantic relationship with intellectual climate in which he
initially through the writings of phi- Okakura, and this enabled her son immersed himself in Paris influ-
losopher Kuki Shūzō (1888–1941), to develop a close spiritual bond enced his choice of emphasis and the
whose father, Kuki Ryūichi, a high- with him that influenced the trajec- manner in which he discussed this
ranking Meiji government official tory of his philosophical inquiries. aesthetic, as did his exposure there

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 27

Plate 1-24 (opposite) Tsuke shoin (writing desk

alcove) adjacent to the tokonoma of the Matsu no
Ma (Pine Viewing Room) at the Sumiya banquet
hall, Shimabara licensed district, Kyoto, 18th
century. Kuki Shūzō observed that iki in
architecture features a “dualistic opposition”
in subtle juxtapositions of textures and colors,
for example, in pairing wood and bamboo
structural components, and in suffusing space
with subdued, indirect lighting.35 The interplay
of the textures and colors of the walls, windows,
and post-and-beam architecture, and the
subdued lighting infuse this room with an
elegant tension characteristic of the aesthetic
of iki.

Plate 1-25 (left) Shibata Zeshin (1807–1891),

Inrō with design of prunus blossoming outside a
latticed window. Bamboo, lacquer, porcelain,
agate. The Walters Art Museum, 61.203. This
elegant object, a tour de force of virtuosity,
embodies the essence of iki.

to ukiyoe prints, which celebrated quickly and drastically altering daily of his scholarly prestige, interpret-
the Edo period pleasure quarter life and cultural attitudes in Japan, ing the meaning of iki through the
sophisticates who were his mother’s Kuki sought to define an identifiably lens of Kuki has remained a topic
social forebears. Kuki Shūzō espe- Japanese aesthetic that highlighted of much discussion among writers
cially admired the prints of Kitagawa both his own culture’s past and its of Japanese aesthetics to the present
Utamaro (1753?–1806), which he unique sense of the modern. In the day, both in Japan and abroad.
described as embodying a “high- beginning of the book, he introduced
class feminine taste that revealed a other words used in the Japanese
‘heroic affinity’ with modernity.”33 language to describe taste, to tease
As Westernized modernization was out their subtle differences.34 Because

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 28 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

MIYABI AND FŪRYŪ

OPULENT AND ST YLISH ELEGANCE

opulent decorative arts, lavish ban- rusticated elegance closer to shibui.

quets, and spectacles associated with Meanwhile, influenced by the
court and religious festivals.36 later Chinese evolution of the word
By the late sixteenth century, among literati of the Ming dynasty
multiple meanings of fūryū prolif- (1368–1644), fūryū came to be used
erated, depending on the context. to describe the aesthetic preferences
The flip side of the understated For example, the wabi aesthetic of of Japanese intellectuals and artists
and restrained beauty of shibui, the chanoyu tea ceremony became who abhorred the repressive policies
wabi, sabi, and iki, is a more opulent described as a fūryū activity. In this of the Tokugawa military regime and
elegance associated with Japan’s élites sense, fūryū implied a conspicuously held great admiration for Chinese
and intellectuals. Formal aristo-
cratic culture of the Heian period
(794–1185) gave rise to the first
flowering of this aesthetic in Japan,
then described as miyabi, “courtly
elegance,” a word that expressed the
pinnacle of refinement and beauty
wistfully contemplated in the expres-
sion mono no aware.
Closely related to miyabi is
fūryū (“blowing with the wind”),
a word that was also first clearly
articulated in the Heian period.
Originally a Chinese term (fengliu),
it entered the Japanese vocabulary
in the eighth century when it more
simply described the gracefulness
and propriety of courtiers. By the
Heian period, fūryū had become
an aesthetic term describing things
and events out of the ordinary, such
as poetry competitions, unconven-
tional displays of flowers in a garden,

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N M I YA B I A N D F Ū R Y Ū 29

Plate 1-26 (above) Section of the Lotus Sutra,

Heian period, mid-12th century. Handscroll
mounted as a hanging scroll, ink on paper with
gold leaf ruled lines, gold leaf and silver leaf
decoration, gold and silver dust, and painted
decoration in margins, 24.8 x 40.6 cm.
Collection of Sylvan Barnet and William Burto.
The aesthetic of miyabi permeates this
sumptuously decorated sacred text.

Plate 1-27 (left) Kemari scene from the Tale of

Genji, 18th century. Six-panel folding screen, ink
and color on gold leaf, 159.9 x 378.2 cm. Gift
from the Clark Center for Japanese Arts &
Culture to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts,
2013.29.12. The Tale of Genji, a novel penned
around the year 1000 by Murasaki Shikibu, a
lady-in-waiting to the court, dwells on the
aesthetic pastimes and romantic entangle-
ments of courtiers. In this idealized scene from
the novel, courtiers, dressed in fine Heian
period style multilayered silk brocade robes
have gathered in a palace courtyard to
participate in a traditional New Year’s game of
kickball (kemari). The robes, cherry trees, and
palace veranda, reflect the spirit of fūryū.

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 literati recluses who in troubled
times had secluded themselves in
rustic retreats in the mountains to
pursue elegant pastimes. Prominent
among the pastimes of these intel-
lectuals was participation in a more
informal Chinese-style service of
steeped green tea (sencha).37 Fūryū
became the aesthetic term that
defined the sencha tea ceremony, in
contrast to wabi, which was closely
identified with chanoyu.
Contemporaneous with the
Chinese-influenced meaning of
fūryū, the word carried a wholly
different connotation among those
who frequented the pleasure
districts. To them, it continued to
evoke the rarified courtly taste of
the distant Japanese past, fused with
a sense of fashion consciousness.

Plate 1-28 (left) Yamamoto Baiitsu

(1783–1856), The Plum Blossom Studio, 1846.
Hanging scroll, ink and light color on satin,
133 x 51.4 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum
of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: Edith
Ehrman Memorial Fund, F79-13. Baiitsu here
depicts the idealistic fūryū lifestyle of the
Chinese scholar-gentleman. Baiitsu was one
of the key participants in the Chinese-style
sencha tea ceremony.

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N M I YA B I A N D F Ū R Y Ū 31

Plate 1-29 (above) Eiraku Hozen (1795–1854), Set of five teacups for steeped tea (sencha), mid-19th century.
Kinrande-style porcelain with overglaze red enamel, underglaze blue, and gold leaf, height 3.8 cm. Saint Louis Art
Museum. Museum Shop Fund, 355: 1991.1-5. Designed for use in the Chinese-style tea ceremony of sencha, Eiraku’s
teacups are suffused with an elegant Chinese fūryū taste in vogue among sophisticated admirers of Chinese culture.

Plate 1-30 (below) Kikugawa Eizan (1787–1867), The Jewel River in Ide, Yamashiro Province, from the series Fūryū seirō
bijin mutamagawa uchi (Elegant beauties of the green houses matched with the six Jewel Rivers), ca. 1810. Color
woodblock print, horizontal oban format, 23.8 x 34.7 cm. Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art, University of
Kansas, 1964-0040. The beauty of geisha was sometimes described as fūryū and many prints that portray them,
like this one, feature titles using the word. Here, the allusion to Heian period aesthetics is underscored through
the subject of the Jewel (Tama) River, popular among ancient courtly poets.

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 32 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

KAREI display, court pageantry, and Shinto

rituals. Befitting the association of
karei with pomp and ceremony, the
SUMPTUOUS ELEGANCE
word entered the Japanese vocabu-
lary during the ninth century, a time
of great opulence in the performance
Throughout the medieval and (literally “flowery beauty”) that of court rituals (see Plate 2-49, a
early modern periods (roughly the connotes a sumptuousness and screen of an ascension ceremony for
fourteenth through mid-nineteenth elegance most evident in styles of a seventeenth-century empress that
centuries) the formal, public life of clothing and theatrical costumes, exudes this aesthetic). The ambiance
Japanese aristocrats and élite war- residential furnishings, including of karei persists into the present in
riors required the use of luxurious gold leaf ground folding screens and imperial court and public festivals,
objects and clothing befitting their lacquer objects made for trousseaus especially those celebrated in Kyoto,
status. These objects are described and other official gifts, and accou- the old imperial capital, that recreate
with the aesthetic expression karei trements and garments for military court life in the ancient Heian era.

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N KAREI 33

Plate 1-31 (left) Motoyoshi (active late 16th–early 17th century), PPlate
Plat -322 ((above) Arita ware, Kutani-
late 1-3
1-32
Lacquer saddle with scenes of some the 53 stations of the Tōkaidō style dish with design of peonies, late
Road, Momoyama period, dated 1606. Gold lacquered wood, 17th–early 18th century. Porcelain with
length 40 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, polychrome overglaze enamels,
enamels
Missouri. Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 32-202-13 O. diameter 32.7 cm. The Nelson-Atkins
Photo: Tiffany Matson. This saddle features small scenes, each Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.
carefully identified, of the individual way-stations along the Gift of Samuel Hammer, 63-33. Photo:
Tōkaidō, the highway that linked the political capital of Edo Joshua Ferdinand. Bold, brightly colored
(Tokyo) with the imperial capital of Kyoto, in what is possibly designs like these against a golden
the earliest known representation of this subject, made famous background reflect the same karei taste
later in woodblock prints by Utagawa Hiroshige. as gold leaf ground folding screens.

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 34 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

Plate 1-33 (left) Kosode robe with

designs of fans, bamboo, plums, and
pines, early 18th century. Gold figured
satin ground with stencil tie dyeing,
silk and metallic thread embroidery,
with an orange plain silk lining, 139.7
x 111.8 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum
of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase:
William Rockhill Nelson Trust,
31-142/21. Photo: Tiffany Matson.
Many karei designs on women’s robes
juxtaposed unlikely motifs. Here,
purely decorative folding fans are
scattered amongst plants known as
the “three friends of winter,” Chinese
Confucian symbols of perseverance
and integrity.

Plate 1-34 (right) Nuihaku-type Nō

robe with paulownia vine design and
horizontal stripes, 18th century. Gold
leaf covered silk ground with silver foil
and silk thread embroidery, 157.5 x
147.3 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum
of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase:
William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 31-142/1.
Photo: Jamison Miller. The glittering
beauty of this Nō robe contributed to
the stately karei atmosphere of the Nō
theater.

Plate 1-35 (left) Iizuka Tōyō (active

ca. 1760–1780), Tiered stationery box
(ryoshi bako), ca. 1775. Makie lacquer
over wood core, gold and silver inlays,
and colored lacquer, 21.6 x 34.9 x 21
cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: David
T. Beales III Fund, F78-23. Photo: E. G.
Schempf. This boldly decorated box
expresses the elegant karei taste of
the upper echelons of the samurai
class. Its varied minute designs,
including family crests, cranes, and
sailboats, as well as patchwork areas
of pure abstraction, were created using
a multitude of lacquer techniques that
required many months of patient effort
on the part of the artist to complete.

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 36 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

KABUKU AND BASARA

OUTL ANDISH ELEGANCE

After the Tokugawa warriors took of other leisure activities, many of The distinguished Japanese art
control of the country in the early which took place in new red light historian Tsuji Nobuo (b. 1932) was
seventeenth century, urban com- districts of Japan’s burgeoning urban the first scholar to recognize a broad
moner culture flourished as never centers, where banquet halls like range of arts and artists whose works
before. Participants in this new the Sumiya, were constructed. Their seem to have been inspired by a
culture included warriors forced to reckless attitude became identi- sense of heterodoxy and playfulness
become masterless samurai (rōnin), fied with a new type of extravagant implicit in the word kabuku. He
who fought on the losing side of fūryū elegance known as kabuku, traced this aesthetic from the dawn
the recent civil wars, and common- literally “twisted, out of kilter, or of Japanese history to the present
ers displaced by the conflicts. These outlandish.”38 This word implied day, and noted that it reached its
individuals became subsumed into “rebellion against conventional social apogee during the Edo period in
the ranks of the newly emerging and artistic attitudes, with a strong the work of artists he has famously
urban commoner classes who par- suggestion of a clash with norms of described as eccentrics.40
ticipated en masse in popular Shinto sexual behavior comparable to that Influenced by Tsuji’s writings,
shrine festivals, attended Kabuki carried today by words such as ‘gay’ recently another older expression for
theater performances, and partook or ‘queer.’”39 this bold aesthetic, basara, has been

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N KABUKU AND BASARA 37

Plate 1-36 (below) Elegant Amusements at a Mansion, second half 17th century. Pair of
six-panel screens, ink, colors, and gold leaf on paper, each screen 106.7 x 260.35 cm. The
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson
Trust, 32-83/14,15. Photo: Tiffany Matson. This imaginary view of a mansion portrays
the wide variety of kabuku spirit leisure activities, some refined and others boisterous,
enjoyed by affluent warriors and merchants in the privacy of their walled-off residences
or in the houses of entertainment and assignation that they frequented.

revived by the neo-Nihonga (mod-

ern Japanese painting) artist
Tenmyouya Hisashi (b. 1966). He
claims to have made this aesthetic
the basis of his art because it
expresses the current climate of
social upheaval in Japan. Tenmyouya
organized an exhibition titled Basara
for the Spiral Garden Gallery in
Tokyo in 2010. In addition to
showcasing his own work, the Plate 1-37 (above) Mino ware, Oribe-type set of five serving dishes with persimmon

exhibition featured pre-modern design, 1600–1620s. Stoneware with underglaze iron oxide design and copper
green glaze, each 9.8 x 5.7 x 6.4 cm. Collection of John C. Weber, New York.
Japanese art that inspired him. In
Photo: John Bigelow Taylor. Tea ceremony aesthetics also succumbed to the
the catalogue, he described basara influence of the new kabuku aesthetic, as seen here in newly popular Oribe
as: wares, whose style is characterized by the application of bright green,
the family of beauty that spontaneous looking glazes and quirky, playful asymmetrical designs.

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 38 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

Plate 1-38 (right) Suit of Armor (marudō tōsei gusoku

type), made for daimyō Abe Masayoshi (1700–1769).
Suit ca. 1730–1740; helmet bowl by Neo-Masanobu,
early 18th century. Lacquer, silver, gold, whale
baleen, silver gilded washi (paper), silk, rasha
(textile), bear fur, leather, iron, copper alloy, gilt
copper, silks, shakudō (alloy of copper and gold
patinated to a rich black), wood, crystal, doe skin,
gilded metal, ink stone. Crow Collection of Asian Art,
2013.1. The best craftsmen of the day created this
armor for a samurai of refined taste, who wore it
during formal processions. It typifies the outlandish
warrior (kabuku or basara) taste. Intricate floral scroll
patterns and family crest designs cover the surface.
A red lacquered wood dragon perches between
gilded wood hoe-shaped decorations atop the
helmet (kabuto). The face mask projects a fierce
expression, while in contrast, the breast plate
features delicate maple leaves. The forearm sleeves
hide hinged compartments for medicines and
writing implements.

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N KABUKU AND BASARA 39

stands on the opposite end of lifestyles. The term comes from the same time, they were persons
the spectrum from wabi sabi the name of the 12 Heavenly with a superior aesthetic sense
and zen…. The term basara Generals [Buddhist guardians] that favored chic and flamboy-
originally referred to social and originally means “diamond” ant lifestyles in addition to
trends that were popular during in Sanskrit. Just as diamonds are elegant attire.... BASARA art
the Nanbokucho Period (1336 hard and can break anything, has continually flowed through
to 1392), and people with an the term was taken to mean the channels of Japanese street
aesthetic awareness that wore people that rebel against author- culture—from the furyu of the
ornate and innovative ward- ity in an attempt to destroy Heian period … being delivered
robes and favored luxurious existing concepts and order. At to modern times.41

Plate 1-41 (below) Kano Kazunobu (1815–1863), Five Rakan

Saving Sinners from Hell, 1862–1863, scroll number 23 from a set
of One Hundred Scrolls of the Five Hundred Rakan, Zōjōji, Tokyo.
Hanging scroll, ink, gold, and colors on silk, 172.3 x 85.3 cm. This
graphic, gruesome scene of sinners trapped in an ice-filled pool
is one Tenmyouya included in his basara exhibition. It exemplifies
the penchant for violence during the mid-19th century.

Plate 1-39 (above) Tenmyouya Hisashi

(b. 1966), Archery, 2008. Acrylic on
wood, 90 x 70 cm. Photo © Tenmyouya
Hisashi, courtesy of Mizuma Art Gallery.
In this painting, Tenmyouya has created
a personification of the basara aesthetic
by combining the fierce stance of the
warrior with the tattooed body of a
gangster, juxtaposed with a vibrantly-
colored bird and snake.

Plate 1-40 (right) Itō Jakuchū

(1716–1800), New Year’s Sun, late 18th
century. Hanging scroll, ink and color
on silk, 101 x 39.7 cm. Gift from the
Clark Center for Japanese Arts & Culture
to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts,
2013.29.9. Jakuchū’s art, the epitome
of eccentricity, is exemplified in this
painting by the artist’s bold, dramatic
brushwork, asymmetrical composition,
and truncated view of his subject.

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 40 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

MA
AN INTERVAL IN TIME AND SPACE

The term ma has become a popu- poets used it to express the misty Hayao (1928–2007), Japan’s first
lar buzzword for defining a whole spaces between mountains and as a Western-trained Jungian psycho-
cluster of Japanese aesthetics in the marker of the passage of time. By the analyst, incorporated Buddhist
post-war period among Japanese eleventh century, the word defined values into his ideas about psychol-
architects and cultural critics. the gaps between pillars in Japanese ogy, describing the key to under-
Literally translated as “an interval rooms and the in-between spaces of standing the Japanese psyche as a
in time and/or space,” ma describes verandas that separated the interi- “hollow center,” a reference to the
the partiality in Japanese design for ors of buildings from their adjacent Buddhist concept of mushin (empti-
empty spaces, vagueness, abstrac- gardens. By the nineteenth century, ness). Kumakura Isao, writing in
tion, asymmetrical balance, and it described the pauses in action in 2007, equated Kawai’s concept with
irregularity. Kabuki theatrical performances. the word ma, although he does not
The earliest reference to ma in Until the post-war period, it had make it clear if Kawai actually used
Japanese occurs in the eighth cen- never been used as an aesthetic term. the word.42 Architect Isozaki Arata
tury Manyōshū anthology. There, Soon after World War II, Kawai is largely responsible for the current

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N MA 41

popularity of ma as an aesthetic
trope, which began in the late 1970s
following a major exhibition on mod-
ern Japanese design he organized,
titled Ma: Space-Time in Japan.43 The
exhibition situated ma within the
context of other traditional Japanese
aesthetic terms, among them sabi
and suki discussed above, and pre-
sented it as a shorthand explanation
for describing the “Japan-ness” of a
wide variety of contemporary avant-
garde Japanese performing, martial,
and visual arts, music, fashion, and
garden and architecture design.44 The
exhibition explored ma in relation to
the cosmology of kami, the unseen
deities of Japan’s indigenous Shinto
religion, and in the acting style and
stage set of the stylized Nō theater. It
is important to note though that in
pre-modern times neither Shinto nor
Nō theater was ever described with
the word ma. Nō, for example, in
traditional aesthetic terminology is
always described as infused with the

Plate 1-42 (above) Veranda of the Mani’in

subtemple at Kongōji, Osaka Prefecture, 14th
century. Photo: David M. Dunfield, 1991.

Plate 1-43 (left) Prefectural Nō Theater,

Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture. Photo ©
Ishikawa Prefecture Tourist Association and
Kanazawa Convention Bureau/© JNTO. Nō
theater is characterized by the stylized dance
movements and gestures of its actors, hypnotic
music, recitation, and chanting, all set against a
bare stage set featuring a lone pine tree. The
interplay of these elements creates a sedate yet
emotionally charged aura (see also Plate 2-15).

Plate 1-44 (right) View of the Inland Sea from

Mount Mikasa, Itsukushima. Photo: Patricia J.
Graham, October 2006.

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 42

Buddhist spirit of yūgen (“mysteri-

ous beauty”), discussed further in
Chapter 2).
Isozaki explained that he chose
ma as the exhibition’s unifying
theme because the concepts behind
it represent the foundation of almost
all aspects of Japanese life. He saw
it as a uniquely Japanese percep- Plate 1-45 (above left) Issey Miyake (b. 1938), Blouse and pants with laser-beam printed
geometric design in graduated colors, 1977. Printed on cotton. Collection of Mary Basket,
tion of spatial and temporal reality
Cincinnati. Photo: Katy Uravitch, The Textile Museum, Washington, DC. This outfit was
that resonated with contemporary
published in 1978 in a pioneering book on Miyake’s designs, Issey Miyake, East Meets West.48
theories of the universe as defined Miyake was one of a number of prominent avant-garde contemporary artists and designers
by quantum physicists who under- who contributed to the landmark 1978 exhibition about ma.
stand space and time not as separate
categories but as interdependent Plate 1-46 (above) Jun Kaneko (b. 1942), Dango, 2006. One of a group of seven sculptures for
the Water Plaza at the Bartle Hall Convention Center in Kansas City, Missouri. Glazed ceramic,
dimensions.45 As Gian Carlo Calza
height ca. 230 cm. Kaneko is famous for his large-scale, boldly glazed sculptures called dango,
has recently observed, this idea
named after the Japanese word for “steamed dumpling,” that he fabricates with seemingly
had first been suggested by Werner endless variations of scale and surface design. Kaneko has said that ma “defines his entire
Heisenberg (1901–1976), the Nobel practice as an artist—as painter, sculptor, designer, ceramicist … a term that derives from
laureate theoretical physicist who what one might call the metaphysics of Shinto.”49

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N MA 43

pioneered the study of quantum Plate 1-47(above) Writing table (bundai), Meiji period, late 19th century. Black lacquer on wood with

mechanics. Heisenberg wondered if gold sprinkled powder (makie) and engraved gilt bronze fittings, 14.4 x 63.8 x 36.4 cm. The
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Gift of Mrs Jack Rieger in memory of Mrs
Japanese scientists’ great contribu-
Hortense P. Lorie, F76-30/1. Photo: Jamison Miller. In describing the beauty of Japanese lacquer,
tions to theoretical physics stemmed
Tanizaki Jun’ichirō wrote that “lacquerware decorated in gold is not something to be seen in a
from philosophical ideas of the Far brilliant light, to be taken in a single glance; it should be left in the dark, a part here and a part there
East.46 Calza also echoed Isozaki in picked up by a faint light. Its florid patterns recede into the darkness, conjuring in their stead an
his observations that “it is precisely inexpressible aura of depth and mystery, of overtones but partly suggested.”50
this kind of aesthetic model—flex-
Plate 1-48 (below) Tokonoma alcove in the tea room at the Sesshūin subtemple, Tōfukuji, Kyoto. Tanizaki
ible, open, attentive to every change
Jun’ichirō eloquently noted of these essential spaces in tea rooms that “Of course the Japanese room
and variation, full of symbolic refer-
does have its picture alcove, and in it a hanging scroll and flower arrangement. But the scroll and the
ences and allusions, and not given flowers serve not as ornament but rather to give depth to the shadows.”51
to concretizing description—that
encouraged the rapid advance of
Japanese art into the avant-garde.”47 was acclaimed at the same time the
In 1933, at a time when Western- word ma came into fashion, because
influenced modernity was begin- it describes aesthetics sympathetic
ning to exert profound influences with ma. In his essay, Tanizaki railed
on the Japanese way of life, novelist against the garishness of the electric
Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (1886–1965) light bulb and argued that Japanese
wrote a short essay about what he objects and rooms possess a mysteri-
considered the essential character ous beauty dependent on their being
of the Japanese aesthetic psyche. visible only in spaces permeated with
Titled In Praise of Shadows, the essay the diffused light of shōji screens or
was only translated into English in the flickering of candles or oil lamps.
1977, and immediately became an In short, he promoted an aesthetic
inspiration to foreign enthusiasts of centered on beauty emerging from
Zen-influenced Japanese aesthetics. the darkness of the void-like space
Not surprisingly, Tanizaki’s essay of ma.

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 44 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

NŌTAN
THE DARK–LIGHT PRINCIPLE

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N N Ō TA N 45

Plate 1-50 (left) Stencil with

undulating vertical lines with
cross hatchings at intervals. Late
19th–early 20th century. Mulberry
paper, persimmon tannin, 18.1 x
38.8 cm. Santa Barbara Museum
of Art. Gift of Virginia Tobin,
1994.48.9. Japanese stencils,
with their bold, flat, contrasting
patterns, are generally regarded
as the pre-eminent Japanese art
form in which the principle of
nōtan is most clearly apparent
(see also Plate 3-8).

Nōtan, the dynamic interaction responsible for its initial wave of pop- how to create dynamic designs on
between dark and light values in a ularity. In the 1920s, artist Rudolph flat surfaces by emphasizing positive/
two-dimensional image, is a Japanese Schaeffer (1886–1988), then a profes- negative spaces including symmetrical
aesthetic term wholly invented by sor of the California School of Fine and asymmetrical balance, relative
modern-day Westerners, used mainly Arts, began using it to teach design placement of dark and light areas, and
by artist educators and designers. principles. Later, he founded the spatial distortions. Its acknowledge-
The two Japanese words, “dark” and Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design in ments section credits Ernest Fenollosa
“light,” that comprise this term were San Francisco, which was influenced (1853–1908; see page 134) as probably
never joined together as aesthetic by Asian aesthetics and philosophies. the first to introduce (my italics) the
terminology in Japan. However, it One of his students in the 1920s was term to the US in the 1890s and Dow
has been widely used in the interna- artist Dorr Bothwell (1902–2000), as the first to apply it to Western art
tional design community since the who in 1968 co-authored an influen- design.54 This description reflects the
early twentieth century and therefore tial book on nōtan for design educa- misunderstanding of many artists
merits consideration. Arthur Wesley tors, Notan: The Dark–Light Principle and art educators who regard it as an
Dow (1857–1922; see page 121) was of Design. Her book featured practical authentic Japanese design term, not
exercises for instilling understanding one invented by Fenollosa and used
Plate 1-49 (left) Sword guard (tsuba) with eight of nōtan in students, and it remains in by Dow, as was actually the case.55
folding fans, Edo period. Shakudo, gold, and print to this day.52 The book’s foreword Regardless of its derivation, the term
copper, 6.9 x.6.5 x .42 cm. The Walters Art described nōtan as “the basis of all remains widely used. American artist
Museum, 51.140. The design for this tsuba relies
design” and noted that the mirror- Sharon Himes, founder of the early
on the strength of its positive and negative
image circular symbol for the Eastern Internet artists community ArtCafe,
nōtan elements. Folding fans encircle the
perimeter and the eye reads the empty spaces philosophical concept of the oppos- recently authored an article about
where they intersect as a bold star-shaped ing values of yin and yang embodies it in her widely read online journal,
pattern. its principles.53 The book explained “Notan: Design in Light and Dark.”56

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 46 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

MINGEI
JAPANESE FOLK CRAFTS

Early chanoyu tea masters were of society. He considered these arts

the first to recognize and admire a reflective of the true aesthetic expres-
definitive aesthetic, defined by rustic- sion of the Japanese people. Although
ity and unpretentious ruggedness, he spearheaded appreciation for these
associated with the dwellings and crafts, many of which would otherwise
functional objects used by Japanese have been lost to history, his insistence
farmers. Medieval period tea mas- that they be classified as separate from
ters incorporated this aesthetic into other types of fine arts and crafts has
their new wabi-style tea ceremony led to their marginalization from
in preferences for rough, unglazed many mainstream art museums and
stoneware ceramic tea utensils and collections of Japanese art.
unpainted, wood-framed, thatched- Although Yanagi called these
roof tea houses. But tea masters only products “folk crafts,” and although
valued arts that resonated with their some mingei artists are self-taught and
ideas about chanoyu. It was Yanagi their arts have a rusticated appear-
Sōetsu (see page 138) who rediscov- ance, these crafts are far from primi-
ered and promoted appreciation for tive. Mingei products are sophisticated
a much wider variety of inexpensive, in both design and technique. Their
utilitarian, handmade crafts by and varied appearance stems from the
for commoners that extended from fact that the definition of commoners
Japan’s prehistory to his own time. in pre-modern Japan encompasses
In 1926, he coined the phrase mingei a wide range of individuals, from
Plate 1-51 (above) Kettle hook (jizaigaki), late (“people’s arts”), which he translated rural peasants to urban dwellers, with
19th–early 20th century. Zelkova wood, height into English as “folk crafts,” purposely varied tastes, income levels, and access
33.7 cm, width 30 cm, diameter 7 cm. Photo
avoiding the word “art.” He believed to different types of raw materials.
courtesy of Toyobi Far Eastern Art. The central
room of traditional Japanese commoners’
that the anonymous artisans who The common denominators for these
houses featured charcoal fires in open made these objects utilized natural crafts include their reliance on locally
hearths where an iron kettle hung from an materials and pre-modern production sourced materials (for example, local
adjustable wooden hook attached to a rope methods to create practical, functional clays, wood species, cotton, and
slung over the roof structure’s cross beams. products imbued with an unconscious plant dyes), their utilitarian func-
The robust form of this hook is more than
spiritual beauty that revealed an tion (including clothing, tableware,
merely a practical object. Its inverted V shape
intentionally recalls the shape of the hat worn
elevated moral or social conscious- furniture, and even crafts and statuary
by Daikoku, one of the Seven Gods of Good ness superior to objects created as made for religious devotions), the
Fortune, protector of the home. luxury goods for the wealthy and élites anonymity of their makers (who often

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N MINGEI 47

Plate 1-53 (left) Futon

(bedding) cover with
pine crest and auspici-
ous motifs, late 19th–
early 20th century.
Plain weave handspun,
handwoven cotton cloth
with tsutsugaki (free-
hand paste-resist dyed)
decoration in colors on
dark indigo ground, 197
x 160 cm. Portland Art
Museum. Gift of Terry
Welch, 2009.25.44.
Flaming jewels, a magic
mallet, and peacock
feathers were among the
auspicious emblems
blessing the person who
slept under this cover.

Plate 1-52 (above) Demon Reciting Prayers, 18th–early 19th

century. Hanging scroll, ink and color on paper, 53.0 x 20.4 cm.
Gift from the Clark Center for Japanese Arts & Culture to the
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2013.29.47. These charmingly
humorous talisman pictures (Ōtsue) were popular souvenirs
that travelers purchased from makers in the town of Ōtsu, a
way-station along the Tōkaidō highway. This one portrays
a demon dressed as a monk, an image that was believed to
prevent infants from crying at night.

Plate 1-54 (right) Massive Echizen ware water jar, 16th century.
Stoneware with natural ash glaze, height 72.4 cm. The
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase:
Edith Ehrman Memorial Fund, F92-32. Photo: Jamison Miller.
This sturdy pot is a classic example of Japanese folk ceramics
of the sort appreciated by chanoyu masters. It is distinguished
by its irregular shape, derived from a combination of coil
and wheel-thrown techniques, and a thick-walled surface
embedded with coarse grains, augmented with a naturally
occurring ash glaze that drips down its sides, an effect later
potters cultivated.

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N MINGEI 49

work together in a communal spirit

to produce crafts for the people of
the area in which they live), and their
handmade production techniques
(see also Plates 2-57–2-61, and 3-22).
Many types of traditional mingei
featured auspicious emblems to offer
their owners protection from diseases,
injury, and other calamities, and as
prayers for health, wealth, safe child-
birth, and the like (see Plate 2-10).
Yanagi did not single-handedly
create appreciation for mingei. He
developed his theories together with
artist-friends, potters Hamada Shōji
(1894–1978; see Plate 2-21) and
Kawai Kanjirō (1890–1966), whose
works reinterpret mingei aesthetics
for the modern world.
Today in Japan, the word mingei is Plate 1-57 (above) Munakata

widely used to refer to many types of Shikō (1903–1975), In Praise of

Flower Hunting, 1954. Woodblock
local crafts, often produced for tour-
print mounted as a hanging scroll,
ists, but based aesthetically on tradi-
150.5 x 169.4 cm. Art Institute of
tional, regionally made handicrafts. Chicago. Anonymous Donor,
1959.584. The prints of Munakata,
a self-taught artist famous for
carving his own woodblocks at a
Plate 1-55 (left) Mingei crafts shop in the town feverish pace, first attracted the
of Tsumago, Nagano Prefecture. Photo: David M. attention of Yanagi Sōetsu and
Dunfield, May 2003. Kawai Kanjirō in the 1930s for his
art’s sincerity and unpretentious-
Plate 1-56 (right) Interior view of the Takishita ness. These qualities accorded
House, Kamakura, renovation dating to 1976; with Yanagi’s beliefs that the
originally constructed early 19th century; moved beauty of folk crafts derived from
and restored by architect Takishita Yoshihiro (b. the makers’ inherently Buddhist
1945). Takishita has made a career of saving old attitude of selflessness. This print,
minka (farmhouses) from demolition by moving produced well after Munakata
those that cannot be preserved in situ and met Yanagi and Kawai, portrays
using their skeletal framework to create hunters shooting flowers, not
comfortable modern houses for himself and arrows, a Buddhist reference to
clients worldwide. Originally a village chief’s compassion and connectedness.
house from a town in Fukui Prefecture, this The sharp, energetic lines and
large minka features posts made of keyaki bold contrasts between dark and
(Japanese zelkova) and massive curved beams light areas characterize
from giant old pine trees. Munakata’s style.

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 50 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

Plate 1-58 (above) Hon’ami Kōetsu (1558–1637), Poems from the Shinkokin wakashū (New Collection of
Japanese Poems from Ancient and Modern Times). Handscroll in ink, gold, and silver on woodblock printed
paper, 33.8 x 830 cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 125th Anniversary Acquisition. Purchased with funds
contributed by members of the Committee on East Asian Art, 1999-39-1. The aesthetic appeal of this
handscroll relies on the collaboration between the calligrapher Kōetsu and an unknown craftsman who
first created beautiful stencil designs of ivy, grasses, and wisteria in gold and silver ink on the paper.

RINPA
DECORATIVE ART OF THE KŌRIN SCHOOL

The artistic style known as Rinpa of Rinpa art recalled the courtly system of artistic production in
emerged in the old imperial capital culture of the Heian period and often Japan, the Rinpa tradition has
of Kyoto during the early seven- featured ancient waka poetry, yet its endured due to efforts of individual
teenth century through the efforts greater abstraction and bolder colors artists inspired by the achievements
of a small group of independent- imparted a modern flair to these arts. of earlier Rinpa masters. Following
minded individuals. Their leader Beginning with Kōetsu, artists the initial burst of activity under
was Hon’ami Kōetsu (1558–1637), a of the Rinpa tradition worked in Kōetsu, Sōtatsu, and his immediate
calligrapher from a well-connected multiple media, including lacquers, followers in the seventeenth century,
samurai family of sword polishers ceramics, and textiles, in addition to the painter Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716)
who immersed himself in various paintings in various formats. Many, and his younger brother Ogata
arts at an artists’ colony he founded, like Kōetsu, collaborated with Kenzan (1663–1743) created a
and his less well-recorded collabora- specialized craftsmen such as dyers, second wave of interest in Rinpa
tor, the painter Tawaraya Sōtatsu (d. lacquer makers, or paper makers. designs, which they modified to
ca. 1640). The subjects and styles Unlike the more familiar atelier appeal to patrons of their own time.

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N R I N PA 51

The artist Sakai Hōitsu (1761–

1828), whose well-to-do samurai
family had, generations earlier,
patronized Ogata Kōrin, initiated a
third major revival of the Rinpa tra-
dition. Hōitsu revered Kōrin as the
greatest Rinpa master and worked
tirelessly both to promote him and
to emulate his style.
Although today the name Rinpa
is widely used to designate artists
whose work follows this tradition,
that was not always the case. Since
the time of Hōitsu and through the
Meiji period it was called the “Korin
School.” Before that it had no name.
Influenced by Ernest Fenollosa (see
page 134), who revered Kōetsu as
the founder of this artistic lineage,
these artists were sometimes referred
to as the “Kōetsu School” (see
Plate 3-19). Some design qualities
associated with the Rinpa artistic
movement possess similarities with

Plate 1-59 (above) Tawaraya Sōtatsu (d. ca. 1640) and an unidentified
calligrapher, Visiting the Shrine, A Scene from the Tales of Ise (Ise
monogatari). Album leaf mounted as a hanging scroll, ink, color, and
gold paint on paper, 24.4 x 21 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
Kansas City, Missouri. Gift of Mrs. George H. Bunting, Jr, 74-37. Photo:
Jamison Miller. Like more conservative painters who portrayed courtly
themes (see Plates 1-27 and 2-33), Rinpa artists preferred thick mineral
colors but applied them more freely, omitting details to engage the
viewer’s imagination.

Plate 1-60 (left) Copy of a lacquer box for writing implements by Ogata
Kōrin with designs of the eight-plank bridge (Yatsuhashi), Meiji period,
late 19th century. Lacquer with metallic and mother-of-pearl inlays,
27.6 x 19.9 x 14.7 cm. Collection of Edmund and Julie Lewis, Chicago.
This box faithfully copies one of the most famous of all known works
by Kōrin in the Tokyo National Museum. Such copies were created not
as forgeries but as homage to their original creator. This subject was a
favorite of Kōrin and subsequent Rinpa artists, a famous passage from
the celebrated courtly prose-poem, the Tales of Ise.

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 52 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

identified, and so the name “Sōtatsu-

Kōrin School” came into vogue. By
the post-war period, an abbreviated
appellation of Kōrin’s name (joining
the second character of his name,
“Rin” with the word for school,
“ha”) resulted in the tradition being
renamed “Rimpa” (which is now
more commonly spelled “Rinpa”).
This name came into standard usage
in the early 1970s following two
popular exhibitions, one in the USA
at the Japan Society (1971) and the
other at the Tokyo National Museum
(1972).57
In 2012, a landmark exhibition at
the Metropolitan Museum inter-
Plate 1-61 (above) Ogata Kenzan bold designs described as nōtan, so preted Rinpa more broadly than ever
(1663–1743), Set of food dishes for the it is no wonder that Fenollosa, who before. As the exhibition’s curator,
tea ceremony meal (mukōzuke) with John Carpenter adroitly explained
conceived the term nōtan, was one of
designs of autumn leaves floating in
the early promoters of Rinpa artists. in the catalogue:
the Tatsuta River, 18th century.
High-fired pottery, polychrome and Beginning in the early twentieth The Rinpa aesthetic
overglaze, and gold pigment, height 3.4 century, Japanese scholars reasserted embraces bold, exaggerated,
cm, diameter 16.3– 18.1 cm, foot diameter the importance of Kōrin in naming or purely graphic renderings of
9 cm. Miho Museum, Shiga. The varied this tradition, but linked him with natural motifs as well as for-
and abbreviated playful designs on malized depictions of fictional
Sōtatsu, whom they had recently
each of these plates reveal Kenzan’s
creative genius.

Plate 1-62 (right) Kamisaka Sekka

(1866–1942), Snowcaps (Yuki bōshi), from
vol. 1, p. 22, of the 3-volume set of albums,
Chigusa (All Kinds of Things), 1899–1900.
Color woodblock print, 24 x 36 cm. Gift
from the Clark Center for Japanese Arts &
Culture to the Minneapolis Institute of
Arts, 2013.29.61.1. Sponsored by the
Japanese government, Sekka traveled to
Europe to study the fashion for Japonisme.
After returning, he spearheaded interest
in reviving Rinpa designs as models for
Japanese designers, fused with a new
sense of abstraction influenced by his
exposure to Western Art Nouveau styles.

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 characters, poets, and sages. Rinpa is the evocation of nature Plate 1-63 (above) Sakai Hōitsu (1761–1828),

Underlying Rinpa design sen- as well as eye-catching composi- The Thirty-Six Immortal Poets, ca. 1815.
Two-panel folding screen, ink and colors on
sibilities is a tendency toward tions that cleverly integrate text
paper, 165.1 x 180.3 cm. The Nelson-Atkins
simplification and abbreviation, and image.58
Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Gift of Mrs
often achieved through a process Carpenter’s exhibition featured the George H. Bunting, Jr, 77-50. Photo: Jamison
of formal exaggeration. Rinpa core artists associated with Rinpa, Miller. The thirty-six poets lived at various times
is also celebrated for its use of but it also explored the influence of between the seventh and eleventh century and
lavish pigments, conspicuous or Rinpa aesthetic on arts as varied as so could never have gathered as a group. Hōitsu
based this whimsical composition on one
sometimes subliminal references textile pattern books, fin de siècle
invented by Kōrin. It is actually not a finished
to court literature and poetry, ceramics, cloisonné enamels of the
painting but a preparatory drawing he kept in
and eloquent experimentation Meiji period, and modern Japanese- his studio as a model, indicative of how popular
with calligraphy. Central to style (Nihonga) artists. the subject was among patrons of Rinpa artists.

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 54 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

KAZARI
MODES OF DECORATION AND DISPL AY

As evident from the discussion

above, the long and complex evolu-
tion of Japanese society stimulated
creation of diverse design/aesthetic
sensibilities. In recent decades,
foreigners and Japanese writing on
aesthetics have sought to create over-
arching frameworks for discussions
about Japanese design generally.
They emphasize the gradual evolu-
tion of Japanese design traditions
and recognize that often multiple
modes of equal importance existed
simultaneously within a plurality of
social contexts. These varied modes
can generally be described with
the word kazari, translated vari-
ously as “decoration,” “ornament,”
and “adornment.” Although not all
writers use this term, their inter-
pretations share many fundamental Style exhibition catalogue of 1961 Plate 1-64 (above) Kōdaiji-style covered
principles, and all emphasize that attempted to define the special quali- incense container with design of autumn
flowers and sea shells, 17th century.
finely made Japanese things were ties of Japanese design by examining
Lacquered wood with makie decoration,
created as part of a sophisticated sys- specific types of arts within their
metal rim on interior, height 6.35 cm.
tem in which objects became linked historical, religious, and cultural Portland Art Museum. Gift of Richard
through a set of shared values. contexts in. He noted that Louis Brown, 2012.30.6. Possibly the
Among the earliest Westerners to China often provided impetus same object is illustrated in Sherman
adopt this approach was Sherman and inspiration not even the most Lee’s Japanese Decorative Style
catalogue (no. 125), owned at that time
E. Lee (1918–2008), the long-time ardent Japanophile would deny.
by a private collector in Cleveland.
director of the Cleveland Museum The traditional theory of alter-
of Art (1958–1983), who pioneered nating waves of Chinese influence
appreciation for Japanese arts in his and troughs of Japanese assimila-
acquisitions and exhibitions at that tion is certainly nearer a truth,
museum. His Japanese Decorative but we must recognize additional

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N KAZARI 55

Plate 1-65 (right) Sutra wrapper (chitsu) from

Jingōji temple, Kyoto, with fittings in butterfly
shape and temple seal on reverse, first half 12th
century. Slender split black bamboo strips
interwoven with dyed silk threads atop mica
flecks, surrounded by a border of orange ground
silk brocade, gilt copper alloy fittings, green silk
twill weave lining, 45.5 x 31.1 cm. The Nelson-
Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.
Bequest of John M. Crawford, Jr, 69-29/1. Photo:
Tiffany Matson. Illustrated in Sherman Lee’s
Japanese Decorative Style catalogue (no. 4), this
sumptuous object, the embodiment of Heian
period miyabi aesthetics, once held sacred
Buddhist texts.

Plate 1-66 (far right) Nishiaki Hisako (b. 1956),

Japanese quilt with family crest designs, 2010.
Hand-pieced and quilted cotton cloth with paste
relief indigo dyeing (tsutsugaki). Sherman Lee
included a large number of family crest designs
in his book, The Genius of Japanese Design,
arranged according to variations of particular
motifs. Such designs remain popular among
Japanese artists today. Many are abstractions of
natural motifs.

Plate 1-67 (right) Arita ware, Shoki-Imari type

(probably Chōkichidani kiln), large dish with
landscape design, mid-17th century. Porcelain
with matt-finished glaze and underglaze blue
decoration, height 8.9 cm, diameter 44.1 cm.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City,
Missouri. Bequest of Mrs George H. Bunting, Jr,
81-27/13. Photo: Joshua Ferdinand. As noted by
Michael Dunn, among arts fashioned from the
earth, ceramic production has a long history in
Japan and its makers have continually endea-
vored to improve their techniques to the point
where, at present, the Japanese ceramics industry
and artists who specialize in this material are
perhaps the most diversified and technically
sophisticated in the world. Among the most
important historical developments was the
introduction of high-fired porcelain technology
from China in the early seventeenth century. The
bold design on this dish typifies the exuberant
taste of affluent domestic users of porcelain in
the earliest period (shoki) of production in Japan.

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 56 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

waves of intense creativity when

Japanese made contributions as
Plate 1-68 (below) Sakiyama Takayuki (b. 1958), Listening to
original and significant, if of a
the Waves (Chōtō), 2007. Sand-glazed stoneware, 57 x 58.5 x different order, as those made by
44 cm. Collection of Halsey and Alice North. Photo: Richard the Chinese. Nationalistic critical
Goodbody. Sakiyama is one of the most creative and efforts have attempted to isolate
extraordinarily skilled contemporary Japanese clay artists
the uniquely “Japanese” qualities
working today. His double-walled vessels are distinguished
of the islands’ art: loyalty and
by their robust, undulating forms inspired by the sandy sea
coast near his home.
patriotism, purity and cleanli-
ness, gracefulness and quietness,
valor and activity, fatalism, intu-
ition, sensitivity, love of nature,
dexterity, simplicity, reticence,
shibumi (subdued and unpre-
tentious) as embodied in sabi
(aged, lacking the aggressiveness
of the new), and wabi (the same
concept applied to architecture).
An objective study of the range
of any art might well find such
qualities, but certainly Japanese
art reveals numerous works and
schools which display none of
these qualities, all encompassing
as they seem to be. Many of these
aberrations are the result of too
much tea, and the tea ceremony
is not the only historical expres-
sion of Japanese culture.59
Lee’s last point (“too much tea”)
is significant and may have been
intended to counter Elizabeth
Gordon’s singular promotion of shi-
bui in her magazine and in popular
exhibitions that toured the United
States at the same time Lee orga-
nized his exhibition. Yet, Lee shared
Gordon’s admiration for the Japanese
predilection to create beautifully
made functional objects, often by
unknown makers. Lee also sought
to define the essential characteristics

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 1 T H E A E S T H E T I C S O F J A PA N E S E D E S I G N KAZARI 57

of Japanese designs, describing them Plate 1-69 (left) Negoro-style sake bottle

as “composed of certain forms and (heishi) with pine and plum design, late
16th–early 17th century. Wood coated
combinations repeated with subtle
with layers of black and then red lacquer,
and seemingly infinite variation. Like
height 41 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum
other decorative styles it relies heav- of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase:
ily on the use of precious materials, Edith Ehrman Memorial Fund, F78-17.
particularly gold and silver, in jux- Photo: Jamison Miller. Vessels with this
taposition with pure color. Its basic distinctive combination of red and black
lacquer, some decorated as here, others
compositional devices are markedly
plain, are known as Negoro ware, and
asymmetrical.…”60
were originally made for use at Buddhist
In 1981, Sherman Lee authored a temples. Their patina embodies the
deluxe book, The Genius of Japanese essence of wabi-sabi; the wearing away
Design,61 which expanded upon his of the red lacquer outer layer over time
earlier catalogue. In it he empha- reveals more of the black lacquer
underneath. This aesthetic helped to
sized the Japanese proclivity for
infuse the space of the sanctuary with
patternization and sensitive use of
an ambiance of Buddhist kazari. The
natural materials, which he effec- decoration on this bottle, auspicious
tively highlighted in the book’s back plants associated with winter (pine and
section, an encyclopedic primer plum), indicate it was probably featured
that illustrated multiple variations in New Year’s rituals.

on popular Japanese visual subjects,

Plate 1-70 (below) Teisai Hokuba
many drawn from imagery of the
(1757–1844), Geisha Playing Cards.
natural world. Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk, 54.8
Another writer to explore the mul- x 72.6 cm. Feinberg Collection. Paintings
tifaceted nature of Japanese designs of beautiful women geisha (bijin) reflect
is British expatriate Michael Dunn, the sophisticated kazari taste (iki) of
affluent urban merchants.
a resident of Japan since 1968, who
initially arrived as a businessman.
His empathy towards traditional
Japanese culture and art enticed him
to become an art dealer, collector,
and author of many eloquent articles
and exhibition reviews for the Japan
Times newspaper. Dunn also served
as curator of a provocative exhibition
for the Japan Society Gallery in New
York in 2001, Traditional Japanese
Design: Five Tastes. There, he explored
Japan’s design aesthetics through five
representative “tastes” seen in arts
of diverse types that share common
characteristics, production processes

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 58 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

that underscore an unwavering con- New York mounted an exhibition

cern for materiality and technique, on this theme, inspired by Professor
and visually arresting designs.62 The Tsuji’s concept, grouped around six
catalogue described these five tastes, types of kazari popular in the early
most of which have already been modern period (ca. 1600–1868),
introduced in this chapter, as “Ancient when various modes of decoration
Times” (kodai no bi; an introductory flourished simultaneously. Although
section that featured archaeological conceptualized differently, the
materials created in the prehistoric aesthetic typologies the catalogue
period through the first century CE), introduced highlighted the design
“Artless Simplicity” (soboku; arts issues this chapter has addressed.
for commoners, essentially mingei The catalogue’s editor, Nicole
aesthetics), “Zen Austerity” (wabi, Rousmaniere, noted that “through-
arts in tea taste), “Gorgeous Splendor” out pre-modern times kazari has had
(karei; arts for élites, aristocrats and multifarious applications depend-
high-level warriors), and “Edo Chic” ing on context, whether religious
(iki; arts reflecting the vibrant urban or political, personal or communal,
culture of affluent merchants of the intellectually sophisticated or purely
Edo period). extravagant” and that it encompasses
In 2005, Dunn also authored a “the act of decorating or displaying,”
lavishly illustrated, meditative and and “refers not just to the actual
wide-ranging volume, Inspired object and the decoration on it, but
Design: Japan’s Traditional Arts.63 also to the use of that object and
After ruminations on the Japanese its transformation into something
sense of beauty that touched upon special or extraordinary.”64
familiar themes of inspirations from Italian art historian Gian Carlo
nature and Zen Buddhism, his sub- Calza, whose 2007 book, Japan
sequent chapters echoed the admira- Style, serves as a contemplative
tion of many earlier writers for the introduction to the visual qualities that gives rise to images capable
Japanese artists’ sympathetic use of that characterize Japanese arts, also of representing values that are
materials that he used as his book’s emphasized the existence of multiple profound and enduring, not
organizing framework with sections styles of artistic expression. Similar ephemeral like fashion which,
titled “art from fauna,” “art from to Sherman Lee’s interpretation, to by definition, must constantly be
flora,” and “art from the earth.” Calza, Japan’s characteristic “style” changing.65
Like Lee and Dunn, Tsuji Nobuo has no distinct appearance but Calza divided his book into three
has also spent many years investi- encompasses diverse artistic tradi- sections: “Irregular Beauty,” “The
gating stylistic linkages among arts. tions created over a long period of Feeling of Nature,” and “Masters
He was the first to use the term time. He argued that style is of Art.” Within this structure, he
kazari as an overarching framework the result of a complex process of explored the appeal of Japan’s
for understanding Japanese design personal and social transforma- wondrous sense of design in
and aesthetics. In 2002, the British tion (and as such not attribut- language reminiscent of both
Museum and the Japan Society in able to a single person), one Elizabeth Gordon on shibui and

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 Isozaki writing about ma: familiarity it is possible to detect Plate 1-71 (above) Andō Tadao (b.

The reasons for the popularity of messages that are unfamiliar 1941), Lobby of the Park Hotel, Benesse
House, Naoshima, 2006. Photo: Patricia
Japanese culture in the West are and beguiling, that charm and
J. Graham, October 2006. While using
to be sought in this realm of the disconcert, and at the same time
modern materials of concrete and
imperfect, the unresolved, the offer a new, refreshing model of glass, Andō effectively captures the
asymmetrical. Japan’s ‘western- art and beauty; allusive, rather emphasis on minimalism, materiality,
ness’, its modernity avant la let- than descriptive, emotional asymmetry, and the power of darkness
ter (in addition, obviously, to its rather than rational, averse to that distinguishes much of Japanese
design, both old and new.
staggering present-day moder- symmetry, preferring shadow to
nity), makes it more familiar broad daylight, and determined
than other Asian societies, to avoid perfectionism, which
and allows us to absorb more is pursued only through a total,
easily the more alien elements absolute, and minute attention
of its culture. But beneath this to the imperfect.66

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 60 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

JAPANESE DESIGN
A VISUAL PRIMER FEATURING
CONTEMPORARY ARTS

The previous sections of this chapter have introduced the most

important Japanese aesthetic concepts and principles of design which
have inspired the work of Japanese artists and designers over the
centuries. Despite their diversity, they share formal design principles
that continue to inform the work of many present-day Japanese art-
ists, as the examples here reveal.

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 1 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N A V I S UA L PRIM ER F EAT URIN G CO N T EM PO RA RY A RTS 61

1. Rusticity
Nagakura Ken’ichi (b. 1952), Large vessel with rope handle, 2011.
Madake bamboo, 60.96 x 30.48 x 71.12 cm. Collection of David T.
Frank and Kazukuni Sugiyama. Nagakura mixes bamboo and its roots
in an unorthodox manner to create organic, rustic forms.

2. Imper fection
Tsujimura Shirō (b. 1947), Faceted flower vase, early 21st
century. Stoneware with natural ash glaze, 46.5 x 16 x
19 cm. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The John R.
Van Derlip Fund, Purchased from the Collection of
Elizabeth and Willard Clark. 2003.025.CF. In his youth,
Tsujimura studied Zen before embarking on a career
as a self-taught potter who specializes in wares for the
chanoyu tea ceremony that capture the essence of the
Zen-influenced wabi-sabi aesthetic.

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 62 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

3. Emptiness
Mukaiyama Kisho (b. 1968), Veda Intro no. 1, 2011. Wax on paper,
watercolor, wooden board, 38 × 45.5 × 2.8 cm. Collection of the artist.
A devout Shingon Buddhist, Mukaiyama seeks to give visual form to the
diffuse colors of light that he envisions in his prayers and describes the
light that suffuses in his art as a tranquil presence.

4. Subtlety
Jinzenji Yoshiko (b. 1942), Coconut Field, 1993. Engineered Quilt series.
Cotton, natural dye soga, and quilting, 250 x 200 cm. Helen Foresman
Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas. Gift of the artist, 2007.0099.
Jinzenji, one of Japan’s most well-known quilt makers and commercially
successful textile designers until her recent retirement, divided her time
between Kyoto and Indonesia. She is best known for her innovative dyeing
techniques that create muted, earthy colors from natural dyes. The color
in this quilt comes from the bark of the Indonesian soga tree.

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 5. Flamboyance 6. Color Potency
Kusama Yayoi (b. 1929), Pumpkin, 1994. Yamaguchi Yuriko (b. 1948), Autopoesis, 2012. Ceiling
Fiber reinforced plastic (FRP), height ca. installation of hand-cast and dyed resin with stainless steel
120 cm. Fukuoka Municipal Museum of wire, overall length 3901.44 x 304.8 cm. Crowell & Moring
Art. Kusama is Japan’s most famous LLP, Washington, DC. Yamaguchi explores the inter-
avant-garde artist, an influential early connected nature of a universe comprised of organic
member of the 1960s pop art movement cell-shaped forms drenched with radiant colors,
in New York. Her bold, over-the-top recollecting the bold pooled application of colors in Rinpa
designs bring to mind the traditional paintings, the gradation effects in ukiyoe prints, and the
basara aesthetic. resplendent colors associated with the Buddhist paradise.

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 64 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

7. Fluid Brushwork
Takegoshi Jun (b. 1948), Large rectangular covered box
decorated with kingfishers perched on reeds (exterior and
interior), 2005. Porcelain with overglaze enamels, height
16.51 cm, length 49.53 cm, width 12 cm. Private collection,
on loan to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo: Richard
Goodbody, courtesy of Joan B. Mirviss LTD. Takegoshi, the
son of a Kutani ware potter, has pioneered the modern-
ization of the long tradition of Kutani porcelain (see Plate
1-32), updating the traditional Kutani ware aesthetic with
his vessels’ forms and his lyrical images of plants and birds
that he wraps around his vessels.

8. Asymmetr y
Hamanishi Katsunori (b. 1949), Dim No. 8, 2005. Mezzotint, 19.7 x 24.8 cm.
Private collection, USA. Hamanishi uses the painstaking Western mezzotint
printing technique, a specialty of many contemporary Japanese print makers, to
create striking modern-looking prints whose abstract, asymmetrically balanced
proportions recall traditional Japanese aesthetics, such as the balance of
stepping stones in a garden or the abstracted forms in Rinpa school paintings.

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 1 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N A V I S UA L PRIM ER F EAT U RIN G CO N T EM PO RA RY A RTS 65

9. Nature Abstracted
Okada Yoshio (b. 1977), Moon Spirit Box, 2009.
Lacquer with hemp cloth base, inlaid gold foil, gold
flakes, gold powders, and abalone shell, 3.7 x 14.5 x
11.1 cm. Collection of Sue Cassidy Clark, New York.
Photo courtesy of Erik Thomsen Asian Art, New York.
This artist has created a vision of highly abstracted
clouds swirling around a full moon orb, recalling
but not imitating the appearance of pre-modern
painting and lacquer designs.

10. Spatial Distortion

Kawase Yoshihito (b. 1973), Tower, 2000. Painting on
panels; mineral pigments, ink, and gold and silver
leaf on paper, 182 x 486 cm. Collection of the artist.
The artist uses traditional Nihonga painting
techniques and compositional devices to create a
dark, phantasmagoric vision of contemporary Tokyo,
dominated by elevated highways and a monstrous-
looking Tokyo Tower.

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 CHAPTER TWO
THE CULTURAL
PARAMETERS
OF JAPANESE
DESIGN

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JD_P66_P111 Ch2_AZ.indd 67 4/25/14 6:50 PM
 The design qualities that distinguish the arts of Japan reflect
the culture’s complexity and plurality and its continually
evolving artistic traditions, as befits the hierarchical status,
religious beliefs, education, political viewpoints, wealth,
personal interests, and place of residence of individual mak-
ers and users. Nevertheless, some design aesthetics, such
as those associated with the tea ceremony, permeate arts
designed for use across a broad spectrum of Japanese soci-
ety. Others somehow retain an identifiable Japanese aura
marked by attitudes towards the production and handling
of materials that, above all, stress fine craftsmanship and
attunement to nature. This chapter explores these issues
by considering the ways Japan’s dominant religious tradi-
tions of Shinto and Buddhism have influenced the design of
Japan’s visual arts and through identifying ten key charac-
teristics of Japanese society that have nurtured the creativity
of designers, crafts makers, and artists over the centuries.
That these design traits have endured despite profound
modernizing societal transformations, which began in the
late nineteenth century and have continued unabated since,
reflects deeply entrenched values that continue to define
the cultural identity of the Japanese people.

Plate 2-1 (left) Watanabe Seitei (1851–1918), Cypress Tree,

Moon, and Deer. Hanging scroll, ink on silk, 110.5 x 26.7 cm.
Collection of Gerald and Alice Dietz, Plano, Texas. This
painting evokes the mysterious spirit of Shinto in its
representation of a deer in the mist alongside a majestic
cypress tree, a common sight at Shinto shrines, the trunk
of which is here rendered with a single broad stroke of
the brush.

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 Plate 2-2 (above) Unknown Artist, Kumano Shrine Pilgrimage Mandala
(Kumano Nachi Sankei Mandara), 16th–17th century. Hanging scroll, ink
and color on paper, ca. 259 x 165 cm. Collection of Kumano Nachi
Grand Shrine. Photo: Inconnu (http://www.ikkojin.net present/
2011/03/25510.html) {{PD-US}}via Wikimedia Commons. This painting,
a cosmic diagram of a sacred space known as a mandala, was once
displayed by mendicant monks or nuns to audiences to assist lay persons
in visualizing divine powers at sacred locales. Here, below the celestial
symbols of the sun and moon, the Shinto shrine centered on the
towering Nachi Waterfall is seen on the right and its Buddhist temple
counterpart on the left, with its three-story pagoda in the center.

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 70 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

RELIGIOUS VALUES
AND JAPANESE DESIGN

Although a small minority of the Japanese popula- Plate 2-3 (right) Female
Shinto deity, Heian or
tion embraced Christianity after its introduction in
Kamakura period, 12th
the mid-sixteenth century, people have mainly owed
century. Wood with traces
their spiritual world view to the intertwined belief of pigment, height 97 cm,
systems of Shinto, ostensibly an indigenous faith, width 21.6 cm, diameter
12.1 cm. Asian Art
and Buddhism, introduced from continental Asia in
Museum, San Francisco,
the sixth century. Both incorporated aspects of older
transfer from the Fine
Chinese philosophical/religious creeds of Daoism and Arts Museums of San
Confucianism, which became known in Japan around Francisco. Gift of Mrs
Herbert Fleishacker, B69
the same time as Buddhism.
S36. Images of Shinto
Japanese religious practice famously blurs the
deities (shinzō) were first
lines between secular and sacred realms. Temples carved during the Heian
and shrines often serve as centers for entertainment period. This statue
portrays the goddess in
and shopping. Sumo wrestling, for example, got its
a simple approximation
start as a match to please Shinto gods (kami), and
of a Heian court dress,
later tournaments were held at Buddhist temples. largely unpainted and
Residences and shops also incorporate household roughly carved to high-
light the tool marks of
Buddhist altars to honor ancestors and Shinto shrines
the sculptor.
to protect the dwelling and family members. Small
Shinto and Buddhist shrines get erected along road-
sides to ensure safe passage to travelers.
Until the modern period, Buddhist temples and
Shinto shrines sat side by side in religious complexes
that reflected the Japanese pre-modern hybrid belief
system known as honji suijaku, which coalesced in the
Heian period (see Plate 2-2). This ideology promoted
joint veneration of Buddhist deities (the honji, or origi-
nal gods) and Shinto kami, which were identified as the
native manifestations (suijaku) of the Buddhist deities,
alleviating competition between these two religions.

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 Plate 2-4 (right) Bisque kiln at the Kawai Kanjirō
House, Kyoto. Photo: Patricia J. Graham, July
1987. The rice straw rope with dangling paper
streamers tied around the upper portion of the
kiln and the small pure white offering bottles
atop the firing chamber designate the kiln as a
sacred Shinto space.

The Aesthetic Dimensions of Plate 2-5 (left) Grand Shrine

at Ise. Photo: David M.
Shinto
Dunfield, September 1981.
The Japanese islands sit atop tectonic
This earliest known shrine
fault lines that cause destruction building in Japan is the
from earthquakes as well as healing abode of Amaterasu, the sun
properties from the abundance of goddess, and progenitor of
hot springs they produce. They also the imperial family. The main
building, encased in several
lie in a region of the earth with great
rows of wooden fences, is
seasonal variation. These climatic and
accessible only to shrine
topographic conditions have contrib- priests and the imperial
uted to the development of Shinto’s family. In a momentous act
emphasis on purification rites and of purification and renewal,
agrarian-based festivals. In its respect with only a few interruptions
during the civil wars in the
for the continual cycle of birth,
medieval era, it has been
growth, death and then renewal of
completely rebuilt every
life inherent in the changing seasons, twenty years since the year
Shinto beliefs encompass appreciation 690, most recently in 2013
of both the old and the new, attitudes for the sixty-second time.
that have influenced Japanese artists
and designers to the present day.
At the heart of Shinto practice is
reverence for its millions of kami,
the unseen deities who give and
protect life, embodiments of life-
sustaining forces of nature. Kami

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 take many forms. They may occupy
awe-inspiring places such as oddly
shaped rocks, gnarled old trees,
towering waterfalls, and majestic
mountains, or they may be spirits
of living or deceased personages,
natural forces (such as thunder
and rain), or even useful inanimate
objects. Animals such as monkeys
and deer are considered messengers
of the gods. Some kami protect
familial clans and others, individual
dwellings. So important is protection
of the home (or business) that even
in Japan today no building is erected
without first undergoing a Shinto
purification ceremony.
Kami also inhabit raw materials
used by crafts makers, who pay
homage to them by erecting small
shrines or altars to them in their
workshops. One of the early writers
Plate 2-6 (above) Shinto priest performing a ritual
purification at the Sumiyoshi Shrine, Fukuoka.
Photo: Patricia J. Graham, May 2012.

Plate 2-7 (right) Shinji Turner-Yamamoto

(b. 1965), Disappearances: An Eternal Journey,
SiTE: Lab + University of Michigan School of Art
and Design, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2011. A
large-scale 8000 square foot (750 square meter)
site-specific temporary installation created with
fossils (coral, limestone, indigenous gypsum
fragments/powder), processed gypsum, burnt
limestone/concrete floor, and rainwater. The
artist, now based in the USA, created this
installation in a crumbling former warehouse
building using locally sourced ancient rocks.
Influences from Shinto infuse his artistic vision:
its emphasis on natural materials, its accept-
ance of the cyclical nature of life, and the
appearance of its shrines, surrounded by
pristine areas of white sand or gravel.2

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 about Japanese arts, Langdon Warner
(see page 144), wrote eloquently
about this custom:
Dealing as this body of beliefs
does, with the essence of life
and with the spirits inhabiting
all natural and many artificial
objects, it came about that no
tree could be marked for fell-
ing, no bush tapped for lacquer
juice, no oven built for smelting
or for pottery, and no forge fire
lit without appeal to the Kami
resident in each.1
The abodes of kami are known as
Shinto shrines. These are bounded
by slender, often red, gateways
(torii) and ropes made of rice
straw, and they are frequently
erected at beautiful, often remote,
locales. The pathway to these
places often meanders, rendering
their entrances hidden from afar,
perhaps influencing the preference
for asymmetrical balance in
Japanese design. Unlike Buddhist
temples that are filled with imagery,
representations of the resident kami
remain hidden from view, enhancing
their association with the numinous
forces they represent.

Buddhist Influences on
Japanese Aesthetics Plate 2-8 (above) Kuma Kengo (b. 1954), Exterior covered entryway to

Buddhism complements Shinto by the Nezu Museum, Tokyo, 2009. Unlike the rejection of tradition by
many modernist architects in the West, Kuma typifies the modern
guiding believers along the correct
Japanese architects’ embracing of their culture’s design heritage at
path through life, assisting in their
its best, evident in the heavy overhanging roof, the use of natural
quest to escape the cycle of death stones and bamboo, and the siting of the entrance out of view,
and rebirth and ultimately to achieve around a corner.
perfect enlightenment, an awakened
state of consciousness, or emptiness,
now often described in English as

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Plate 2-9 (below) Esoteric Shingon sect the “Buddha Mind.”3 In Buddhism,
Buddhist altar (butsudana) at a private depending on sectarian beliefs,
residence, Karuizawa, Japan. This is a rather
enlightenment can be achieved
large example of a residential altar before
which devotees recite daily prayers.
either in this lifetime or after death.
Because attaining enlightenment in
this life requires intense dedication,
many followers opt to seek rebirth
after death in a Buddhist paradise,
considered a transient state closer
to fully realized enlightenment than
their present existence on earth.
Practitioners employ diverse medita-
tive and devotional acts to achieve
salvation, some at public sites of
worship and others in the privacy
of their own homes.
Pilgrimages to holy sites associated
with both Shinto and Buddhism are
a defining characteristic of Japanese
religious worship and now encom-
pass hundreds of separate pilgrim
sites and circuits throughout the
country. The act of embarking on a
pilgrimage, a spiritual quest to a holy
site, is a universal mode of religious
worship, associated with Buddhism
from its inception and practiced in
Japan as early as the seventh century.
Japanese religious practice, both
Buddhism and Shinto, also frequent-
ly makes use of mandalas (Jp.
mandara), either two- or three-
dimensional, to instruct followers
(see Plates 2-2 and 2-11). First
introduced from China via Esoteric
sects in the ninth century, they
feature images of deities and sacred
places arranged in a prescribed
manner. As they became central
to meditative practices of diverse
Buddhist sects, their appearances
came to vary accordingly. In general,

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Plate 2-10 (left) Bodhisattva

Kannon surrounded by tiny
statues of Bodhisattva Jizō, early
19th century, Kinshōji (Chichibu
pilgrimage circuit temple #4),
Chiba Prefecture. Stone, height
ca. 100 cm. Photo: Patricia J.
Graham, 2005. The most popular
deity venerated at Japanese
pilgrimage temples is the
compassionate Bodhisattva
Kannon, seen here at a temple
along a route near Tokyo. Stone
statues (sekibutsu) such as this
are classic examples of religious
mingei, made by and for the
common people’s religious
devotions. Bodhisattva Kannon
here is represented in the guise
of a compassionate mother
nursing a child (Jibo Kannon).
Parents, and especially mothers,
offer prayers to her for the
health of their living children
and for the salvation of the
souls of their deceased babies
and fetuses, and deposit at her
feet little statues of Jizō (a
Bodhisattva who protects
travelers and children).

they can be described as visual props development of the chanoyu tea Central to Buddhism is belief
used in rituals designed to enable ceremony and encouraged appreci- in the interconnectedness of all
devotees to envision sacred realms ation for designs that feature vast creation. Buddhist monuments such
and deities that aid their under- areas of emptiness, characteristics as the Indian stupa and its East Asian
standing of the Buddhist universe pointed out by D. T. Suzuki (see counterpart, the pagoda, as well as
and its concepts of enlightenment. page 137) and many others, includ- Japan’s unique version, the gorintō
Among the many Buddhist sects ing Gian Carlo Calza, who, in (five element pagoda), embody this
in Japan, the Rinzai Zen sect has had turn, ascribes the source for these concept in tangible form. Gorintō are
perhaps the most powerful influence preferences in Zen to the influence perhaps the best example of how the
on the culture’s arts. Its stringent of Daoism on its meditative Japanese visualize abstract Buddhist
emphasis on austerity inspired the practices.4 concepts as pure design (see Plate

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 76 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

2-14). Their beautifully balanced, Each form is also associated with one universe in Indian Buddhist sutras
stacked geometric forms represent of five directions and corresponding of the fifth century. First devised
the ordering of the universe into primary colors, borrowed from during the Heian period (794–1185),
five elements, from base to summit: ancient Chinese cosmological stone funerary monuments in this
cube (earth), sphere (water), pyramid systems that originated with Daoism. shape became ubiquitous in temple
(fire), semisphere (air), and jewel Although their three-dimensional courtyards, cemeteries, and gardens
(space or void), representative of the form is unique to Japan, they are and were also installed on temple
progression of Buddhist disciples’ based on descriptions likening these altars as small reliquaries in precious
understanding of Buddhist teachings. shapes to the Buddhist cosmological materials, such as gilt bronze or

Plate 2-11 (left) Star Mandala

(Hoshi Mandara), late 14th–
early 15th century. Hanging
scroll, ink, colors, and kirikane
(gold leaf ) on silk, 128.3 x
117.5 cm. Collection of Sue
Cassidy Clark, New York. Photo
courtesy of Koichi Yanagi
Oriental Fine Arts, New York.
Chinese Daoist cosmological
beliefs about the supernatural
powers of the heavens to
prevent disasters and ensure
longevity influenced Japanese
Esoteric Buddhist concepts
visualized in the uniquely
Japanese star mandala. In
these, the historical Buddha
Shakyamuni (Jp. Shaka)
presides at the center of
the cosmos surrounded by
concentric rings of celestial
deities and protective animals
that personify the stars, five
planets, the moon, constel-
lations associated with various
phases of the moon, the
twelve signs of the zodiac,
and thirty-six minor celestial
guardians and their associated
calendric animals.

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 77

Plate 2-12 (left) Meditation Hall (Zendō), Tōfukuji, Kyoto, 14th century. Photo:
Patricia J. Graham, May 2005. The Zen sect emphasis on meditation has led
to their temples having dedicated buildings for this purpose, where monks
sit in orderly rows upon tatami-matted platforms. This is one of the oldest
surviving examples, a serene open space filled with light from high
clerestory windows but no distracting outside views.

Plate 2-13 (below) Partial view of the sand and rock garden, Ryōanji, Kyoto,
late 15th century. Photo: Patricia J. Graham, 2007. This simple, quiet garden
of just fifteen rocks on five islands of moss arranged irregularly in a sea of
gravel, is widely regarded as the supreme example of the minimalist Zen
karesansui (dry landscape) style garden. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it
epitomizes the Zen aesthetic.

crystal. Later, they began to be

installed in the gardens of private
residences, often in the form of
lanterns.
Gorintō is one type of Buddhist
monument that, in its memorializing
of the deceased, reminds followers
of another basic Buddhist belief, the
transitory and therefore precious
nature of life. This awareness has
deeply penetrated the aesthetic
sensibility of both Japan’s visual and
literary arts. The oldest of many
words to describe these sentiments,
mono no aware, has already been
mentioned on page 20 above as a Plate 2-14 (right) Sugimoto Hiroshi
precursor to wabi-sabi, inspired (b. 1948), Five Elements: Caribbean Sea,
directly by Zen thought. Japanese Jamaica, 2011. Optical quality glass,
black and white film, height 15.2 cm,
prose and poetry abound with
width 7.6 cm, diameter 7.6 cm.
symbolic imagery expressive of Negative 301 © Hiroshi Sugimoto,
mono no aware, most frequently the courtesy of Gallery Koyanagi. The
invocation of specific plants and artist has reinterpreted the traditional
trees, and even particular colors, gorintō form in a contemporary
used as seasonal allusions for the medium and inserted into its center
not a relic of the Buddha or a Buddhist
evanescence of life.5
saint but a tiny photograph from a
During the medieval period, series he completed years earlier of
the word yūgen, a borrowed a vast seascape, an apt Buddhist
Chinese term expressive of metaphor.

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Plate 2-15 (right) Nō mask of a middle-aged

woman (probably Ko-omote), 15th or early 16th
century. Carved and painted wood, 20.32 x 13.7
cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas
City, Missouri. Gift of Mrs James F. Terney,
71–35/2. Photo: Tiffany Matson. Subtly
expressive, this mask dates to the earliest era
when Nō plays were performed. The large areas
of missing paint do not detract from its beauty
but convey the spirit of yugen.

dark mysteriousness came into

prominence. Yūgen, whose elusive
meaning varies with its contexts, as
do all Japanese aesthetic expressions,
has sometimes been described as
“profound grace.”6 This term is most
often associated with aesthetics of
the Nō theater, which developed then
and whose most notable playwright
during its formative period, Zeami
Motokiyo (1364?–1443?) used it to
describe Nō aesthetics. Nō actors
attain a spirit of yūgen when their artists evoke the passage of time in that all life possesses based on
highly stylized, dignified movements images of nature, but also in pictures descriptions from Buddhist scriptures
appear totally natural. Both yūgen of people, especially beautiful young of the atmosphere in which the
and mono no aware encompass, in women, whose beauty vanishes as Buddha preached and of the Buddhist
slightly different ways, a Buddhist they age (see Plates 1-22, 1-30, and paradise itself, often depicted as
appreciation for the profound and 1-70). In fact, in the Edo period a magical, timeless universe filled
mysterious beauty of nature that (1615–1868), the urban red light with resplendent, gold-hued deities
characterizes the spirit of early Zen districts were known as the Floating and myriad jewel-like blossoming
temple gardens (see Plate 3-12). World (Ukiyo), a place where people trees and flowering plants. In
The celebration of these melan- could gather to forget their worldly the real world, these bloomed in
choly emotions encouraged artists cares. Hence, ukiyoe (pictures of different seasons, but in the Buddhist
to portray imagery of the natural the floating [or transitory] world) paradise, as shown in some Japanese
world, especially seasonal themes became the name for the woodblock pictorial representations, they all
that capture a fleeting moment in prints and paintings that depict the blossomed simultaneously. The fine
time. For example, the fragile beauty people and activities in this world, craftsmanship and luminous gold
of cherry blossoms heralds spring’s especially fashionable young women and polychrome surface designs
arrival, suggestive of the joy of rebirth and Kabuki actors (see Plate 1-23), punctuated with abstract linear
while simultaneously reminding the celebrities of their day. patterns found in so many Japanese
viewers of life’s brevity. Buddhism also encouraged artists arts express this notion of sacred
Not only do Japanese writers and to envision the sacred beauty (shōgon) beauty.

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Plate 2-16 (below) Writing box (suzuribako) with designs of the seven grasses of autumn (aki no nana kusa), signed: Shunshō.
Black lacquer on wood with gold and silver sprinkled powder (makie), colored lacquer, and abalone inlay (raden), applied
mixed metal water dropper and ink stone, 4.9 x 16.5 x 18.4 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.
Purchase: William Rockwill Nelson Trust, 33-113/A-G. Photo: Tiffany Matson. The theme of the seven grasses of autumn
(bush clover, pampas grass, chrysanthemum, arrowroot, aster, patrina, and gentian) originated in waka poetry.

Plate 2-17 (right) Eri Sayoko

(1945–2007), Ornamental Box:
Dancing in the Cosmos, 2006. Wood
with polychrome and cut gold, 86
x 16.5 x 16.5 cm. Collection of Eri
Kōkei. In 2002, Eri became the first
woman designated as a “Living
National Treasure” for her achieve-
ments in the art of kirikane (cut
gold leaf decoration). In addition
to applying kirikane to Buddhist
paintings and sculptures, the latter
in conjunction with her husband,
sculptor Eri Kōkei (b. 1943), she
created many beautiful objects, such
as this box, whose subtle coloration
reflects her training in dyeing. Her
designs, inspired by those featured
on ancient Buddhist arts, embody
the spirit of shōgon.

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DESIGN IN JAPANESE CULTURE:

TEN KEY CHARACTERISTICS

1. Relationship Between Fine

Arts and Crafts
Considering how pre-modern
Japanese society regarded the
production of fine arts and crafts
and, concomitantly, the relationship
between artists and crafts makers, is
fundamental to understanding the
overarching and continuing impor-
tance of fine design to all types of
Japanese arts and crafts industries.
Before the late nineteenth century,
various words described makers of
fine arts and crafts although gener-
ally no broad linguistic categories
distinguished one from the other.
The wide variety of professionals
who created handmade things for
rituals, commercial trade, and daily
life, such as weavers, paper makers,
glass blowers, armorers, basket mak-
ers, ukiyoe print makers, lacquerers, Plate 2-18 (above) Satsuma-style hexagonal-shaped vase, late 19th century.
Stoneware with overglaze polychrome enamels and gold, signed “Yuzan” (?),
fan and screen makers, potters, and
height 11.6 cm. Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Gift of George and Kathryn
Buddhist image carvers, were all
Argabrite, 1978.42.11. Satsuma-style ceramics were among the most
defined as shokunin (literally “a per- popular and widely produced type of craft (kōgei) exported abroad and
son who possesses a skill”). The word displayed at international expositions during the Meiji period. Westerners
shokunin excluded only painters particularly admired their finely painted miniature scenes.

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and calligraphers in the employ of Plate 2-19 (right) Mukoyoshi

high status groups in society, such as Yuboku (b. 1961) and

Nakamura Keiboku, Shaka
samurai and people at the court, who
Nyorai (detail), 2003. Wood
were accorded a higher and separate
with polychrome, cut gold
status from other artisans. leaf (kirikane), and crystal
The Japanese first invented an eyes, overall height 205 cm.
all-encompassing word for fine arts Collection of the artists.
(bijutsu) in 1873 when preparing Mukoyoshi carves statues
to which his wife Nakamura
for the nation’s official participation
applies painting and cut
in the Vienna International
gold leaf. He is a busshi
Exposition.7 This word paired bi, the (literally “master of Buddhist
abstract notion of beauty, with jutsu, arts”), inheritor of a skilled
the second character in the pre- profession that has existed
modern word geijutsu (“cultivated since ancient times. The
contemporary art world of
skills”), a word borrowed from
Japan does not, however,
China where it had been used to
consider him an artist who
describe six skills to be mastered creates sculpture (chōkoku).
by scholar-intellectuals.8 Soon, Rather, he is defined as a
the Japanese coined other words maker of a specialized type
to describe artistic production of traditional art craft (dentō
kōgei) because his work
based on Western nomenclature,
is used for devotional
including chōkoku (sculpture), kaiga
purposes and not for
(painting), and kōgei (crafts), the display in museums and
latter describing the many types of fine arts galleries.
handmade Japanese crafts, examples
of which were produced in large
quantities by artisans in workshop
settings. They also created a new
word for crafts, bijutsu kōgei (art
crafts), that reflected their culture’s government-sponsored agencies into promote well-known strengths in
esteem for them and comprised a three separate categories: mingei, design-oriented industries. At the
wide spectrum of crafts in diverse which had just then been conceived, same time, existing laws for the
media by artists who strove for bijutsu kōgei, and kōgyō (industrial protection of cultural properties
creativity and originality.9 Still, design). The latter described well- were strengthened and expanded
following Western hierarchies, they crafted mass-produced consumer to highlight craft traditions based
privileged the “fine arts” of painting products. on pre-modern art forms, newly
and sculpture over all types of crafts. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, described as “traditional crafts”
In the 1920s, definitions for the government’s reconstruction (dentō kōgei). As part of this effort,
crafts and recognition of their efforts brought renewed prominence in 1955 the government began to
significance to Japanese heritage to Japanese crafts with the establish- single out outstanding individuals
became more nuanced with their ment of the Ministry of Trade and who continued to create traditional
division in juried exhibitions and Industry (MITI), which sought to crafts through a new designation as

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 82 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

Plate 2-21 (below) Hamada

Shōji (1894–1978), Square
Bottle, 1955. Stoneware with
colored glazes and iron
decoration, 23.5 x 9.8 x 9.8 cm.
Saint Louis Art Museum. Gift of
Bernard and Sally Lorber Stein,
20:1999. Hamada Shōji,
a professional potter inspired
by the rugged and sturdy
appearance of pre-modern
Japanese folk pottery, assisted
Yanagi Sōetsu in establishing
the mingei movement.
Hamada’s achievements at
melding the folk pottery
tradition with the modern,
Western-influenced notion of
the potter as artist led to his
inclusion in the first group of
“Living National Treasures”
by the Japanese government
in 1955.

Plate 2-20 (above) Yamada Hikaru (1923–2001), Disappearing Vessel (Kieyuku tsubo), 1976. Glazed
stoneware, 50.1 x 38.1 x 10.8 cm. Collection of Halsey and Alice North. Photo: Richard Goodbody.
Yamada was a founding member of the avant-garde Sōdeisha ceramic artists’ association. This
deconstructed vase reflects the artist’s respect for Japan’s long history of producing functional
ceramics while simultaneously boldly challenging viewers’ perceptions of form and space.

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“Living National Treasure” (Ningen have created numerous private 2. Emphasis on Craftsmanship
Kokuhō). This was followed in organizations to promote various and Technological Innovation
1974 by a Law for the Promotion types of bijutsu kōgei, some taking Japanese social mores and spiritual
of Traditional Craft Industries that their cues from pre-modern beliefs derived first from Buddhism
sought to preserve the production traditions and others based on and Shinto, and later from Confu-
of entire craft traditions. So success- Western, modernist, avant-garde cianism, encouraged a patient and
ful have these efforts been that by artistic values. One of the earliest, perfectionist attitude that has helped
the 1990s a government survey most outspoken, and influential of fine craftsmanship to thrive in the
recorded 184 distinct types of the latter was the Sōdeisha (“crawl- country. Artists and designers seek
traditional crafts.10 Today, these laws ing through the mud society”), to master complex technologies that
have evolved into the most complex founded in 1948 and disbanded in improve the quality of their arts and
and sophisticated structure for the 1998, which inspired many of Japan’s building designs to help them meet
preservation of traditional crafts in most unorthodox clay artists active market demands as well as to better
the world. today.12 exploit the potentialities of the media
Although these modern traditional
crafts makers seek to preserve pre-
Plate 2-22 (below) Detail of the bracketing system under the roof of the Tatekakenotō,
modern techniques, they do not
Kanshinji, Kawachi Nagano, Osaka Prefecture, 14th century. The complex wooden
exactly copy past works of art. As joinery used in the bracketing system that supports heavy thatch or tile roofs is one
perceptively defined by Uchiyama of the hallmarks of Japanese architectural design that evolved over many centuries.
Takeo (b. 1940), director emeritus
of the National Museum of Modern
Art, Kyoto, “tradition is not simply
‘preservation.’ It is that element in
creative art which does not change
at its core but which changes
constantly in its expression.”11 This
notion of the underlying, unifying
force of tradition as a basis for
artistic creativity, encompassing not
only the necessity of continuity but
also changes in taste and creative
contributions by individual makers,
has always been an important
component of artistic production in
Japan. It helps account for a sense
of Japanese-ness in Japan’s arts,
regardless of when or in what media
they are created.
Separate from these efforts
to preserve traditional crafts in
the post-war era, diverse groups
of designers and crafts makers

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 84 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

in which they work. Many of Japan’s

well-known design-based arts have
long histories of successes due to
refinements in native manufacturing
processes and/or innovations that
incorporate techniques imported
from abroad.

Plate 2-23 (above) Arita ware, Kakiemon-type covered, footed bowl, ca. 1690. Porcelain with molded and overglaze
enamels, diameter 21.3 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Bequest of Mr John S. Thacher,
F85–14/A,B. Photo: Jamison Miller. The introduction of high-fired porcelain technology from China to Japan in the early
seventeenth century initiated momentous changes in Japan’s ceramics industry. Kakiemon ware takes its name from the
beautiful reddish-orange persimmon (kaki) enamel color perfected by the Arita potter Sakaida Kizaemon (1596–1666),
whose descendants have perpetuated his artistic lineage into the present. The finish was enhanced by perfection of a
special glaze whose formula was a closely guarded secret for many decades. Until the mid-eighteenth century, this
porcelain was made specifically as a fine export product for Europe.

Plate 2-24 (right) Sudō

Reiko (b. 1953), Feather
Flurries (Black), produced
for the Nuno Corporation,
1993. 100 percent trans-
lucent silk organdy, with
goose, peacock, and
guinea hen feathers,
width 115 cm. Photo:
Sue McNab, courtesy of
Sudō Reiko and Nuno
Corporation. Sudō is one
of the most creative and
daring textile designers
active in Japan today. Her
subtle, multi-dimensional
fabric has a frosted moiré
(rippled water) appear-
ance, derived from
weaving together two
transparent layers of plain
weave black silk. Where
the layers are joined, they
form rectangular pockets
into which feathers are
inserted by hand.

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Plate 2-25 (left) Ueno Masao (b. 1949), Rotation of Ellipse

Makes Two Transparent Drums, 2004. Madake bamboo,
rattan, lacquer, and gold powder, 50.1 x 50.1 cm. Gift
from the Clark Center for Japanese Arts & Culture to the
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2013.29.686. Although the
art of bamboo basketry originated in China, Japanese
artists working in this medium have pushed the art form
to new heights. This artist, a former architect, uses
computer software to design perfectly geometric forms.

Plate 2-26 (below) Kaminuma Hisako (1952–2012), Incense

container with design of cherry blossoms and the sun.
Cloisonné enamel (shippō yaki) on metal with copper
wires, 6 x 6 x 4 cm. Kaminuma was a gifted artist who
revived and improved upon a lost traditional technique
for low-fired cloisonné enameling (doro yaki) through her
perfection of a matt-finished red pigment that infused her
designs with a modern spirit. A consummate perfectionist,
she discarded a large proportion of her wares because of
minute imperfections, some visible only with a magnifying
glass. Among her finest works are small, subtly colored
boxes like this, used for storing incense.

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Plate 2-27 (right) Izumiya Tomotada (active late 18th century), Netsuke in the form of a dog.
Carved ivory, length 5.3 cm. The Walters Art Museum, 71.1020. These miniature sculptures
functioned as toggles to attach medicine pouches to the waist sashes of men’s robes.
From the eighteenth century, when forbidden from ostentations displays of wealth, men
sought instead to commission fine miniature arts they could hide from authorities.

Plate 2-28 (below) Satsuki azalea bonsai tree. Exhibited in Ueno Park, Tokyo, May 2012.
Height ca. 45 cm. The Satsuki azalea is a native Japanese botanical species, popular for use
as bonsai (literally “tray plant”). Introduced from China over 1,000 years ago, bonsai has
since developed into a quintessentially Japanese miniature art form. Its trees are not
dwarf varieties but full size plants carefully cultivated to grow in small pots and mimic
the appearance of full size species in nature.

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3. Beauty in Miniaturization ascribes this emphasis to the mean- Plate 2-29 (above) Ōta Jinnoei (active
ca. 1880–1910), Box lid with design of
and Detailed Workmanship ing of the Japanese language word
palatial residence and garden from the
Complementing an emphasis on for “craftsmanship” (saiku; literally
Tale of Genji. Cloisonné enamel, 16.5 x
fine craftsmanship and technologi- “delicate workmanship”).13 He notes
11.43 x 6.6 cm. Exhibited at the 1895
cal innovation, the Japanese have that the Japanese word for beauty Fourth Domestic Industrial Exposition,
a propensity for appreciating the has always embodied preferences for Kyoto; subsequently in the collections
refined beauty of small spaces, arts “small, delicately wrought things.”14 of Emperor Meiji, Empress Meiji, and
These word usages support the visual an imperial prince. Collection of
of diminutive proportions, and art
Fredric T. Schneider. The detailed
forms whose beauty derives from evidence that fine craftsmanship—
design on this box is a tour de force
painstaking detail. The Korean manifested in attention to details and
of technical perfection.
literary critic O-Young Lee is one the creation of small objects—and
of many who have observed these appreciation of beauty invariable go
preferences among the Japanese. He hand in hand in Japan.

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4. Importance of Artistic past when wet rice cultivation and through this iemoto seido system.15
Lineages and Teamwork village life demanded communal The iemoto system reflects Japan’s
For centuries, Japanese artists and cooperation for survival. So perva- tightly knit social structure, which
designers have worked in multi- sive had this system of apprentice- promotes continuity of family and
generational workshops headed by ship and communal learning become guild-like lineages that often
a master who oversees apprentices by the Edo period that a special transmit technical knowledge to
and assistants, facilitating both the terminology, iemoto seido (“head- members secretly. While this may
learning process of younger team master system”), was created to sometimes lead to conservatism,
members and efficient production. describe it. Many traditional literary it would be wrong to think that it
This system is endemic to many and performing art forms, including stifles innovation. In addition, new
types of social organizations in the tea ceremony, schools of poetry, traditions are established when
Japan. Some scholars have attributed flower arranging (ikebana), and the ambitious and creative junior
this way of working to social performing art forms of Nō, Kabuki, members leave to set up workshops
structures developed in the distant and Bunraku theater, still flourish of their own.

Plate 2-30 (below) Raku Ryōnyū (1756–1834), Black raku tea bowl,
copy of “Shishi” by Raku Do’nyū. Earthenware with black raku and
colorless glazes, width 5.1 cm. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, DC. Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1901.2.
Low-fired, lead-glazed raku pottery is one of the most familiar
of all types of Japanese ceramics. The Raku family workshop,
established in the late sixteenth century, is now headed by a
fifteenth generation descendant. Patronage by élite chanoyu tea
schools contributed to its success. Ryōnyū, “the most prolific and
longest-lived member of the Raku house,” produced wares that
closely imitated his forebears, but also, as here, introduced subtle
innovations to the family’s familiar style in the glossy black glaze.17

Plate 2-31 (above) Utagawa Kunisada (Utagawa Toyokuni III; 1786–1864), The Actor Kataoka Nizaemon VIII as
Kumokiri Nizaemon, from the series Thieves in Designs of the Time (Jidai moyo ataru shiranami), 1859. Color
woodblock print, 36.8 x 25.1 cm. Collection of Elizabeth Schultz. Ukiyoe print production required the collabo-
ration of talented printers and block carvers and entrepreneurial publishers to bring to life the imagery created
by the artist who designed the print. Kunisada was one of the most talented and prolific members of the Utagawa
School of print makers, from whose ranks many of the most famous nineteenth-century print makers hailed.

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5. Linkages Between Literary proficiency at painting, however

and Visual Arts amateur. Indeed, for the upper
Japanese prose and poetry have classes, painting lessons comprised
long been a source of inspiration part of their basic education.
for visual artists and written words In China, Confucian tenets
often appear embedded in visual instructed scholars to master
arts as integral design elements. four scholarly pursuits: painting,
During the seventeenth century, a calligraphy, playing go (a game of
newly imposed Chinese Confucian- strategy), and playing the qin (a
based education system that was stringed instrument like a zither)
made compulsory for all citizens, for self-cultivation, not only for
coupled with advances in wood- self-betterment but because such
block printing technology, led to efforts imparted ethical values that
an explosion in the printed book benefitted society as a whole. In
industry that helped facilitate Japan, this mandate resulted in the
widespread literacy. Books were read emergence of informal and formal
for both pleasure and erudition and associations in which individuals
included titles on diverse subjects. studied the Confucian arts and also
Many of these were ehon (illustrated participated in a wide variety of
books) whose texts were vital to the other artistic pursuits, self-selected
meaning and appreciation of the according to their own innate talents
imagery.16 and inclinations, such as the tea
The Japanese written language ceremony, poetry writing, flower
is comprised of native script and arranging, martial arts, ceramics
Chinese pictographs, which must making, sutra copying, and the
be written out in a predetermined carving of Buddhist sculpture and
stroke order and with a proper Nō theater masks. The influence
sense of balance. Thus, diligent of Chinese Confucian values
practice in writing during childhood encouraged the popularity of
instilled an intuitive appreciation consciously amateurish styles of Plate 2-32 (above) Writing box,
for principles of design. In China, painting, in vogue especially during Muromachi period, late 15th–early 16th
century. Black lacquer on wood with
Korea, and Japan, calligraphy has the eighteenth and nineteenth
gold sprinkled powder (makie), height
long been considered a significant centuries. These originated with
9.4 cm, width 9.5 cm, length 23.5 cm.
art form, alongside painting, whose ideas developed by Japanese The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
tools (brush, ink, and inkstone) and admirers of the Chinese literati, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase:
brush techniques it shares. Although Confucian-trained scholars who, William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 64–24.
styles and lineages of professional ideally, refused to sully their sage- Photo: Joshua Ferdinand. Scattered
amidst the rocks on the lid are several
calligraphers have proliferated in like nature by painting for profit.
letters written in the native phonetic
Japan, the fact that in pre-modern
script (hiragana), indicating the
Japan education included writing hidden presence of a Japanese waka
practice with a brush enabled poem, understood when “reading”
anyone so inclined to develop some the text and pictures together.

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Plate 2-33 (above) Unidentified Artist of the Tosa School, The

Imperial Progress, from The Tale of Genji, 17th century. Folding
fan mounted as a framed painting, ink, color, gold pigment,
powdered gold, and gold leaf on paper, 18.7 x 52.7 cm.
Collection of John C. Weber. Photo: John Bigelow Taylor. The
Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari) is a masterpiece of Japanese
prose literature. Written around the year 1000 CE by Murasaki
Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting to an empress, it depicts the world of
a fictional prince, Genji, and by extension the privileged life of
courtiers in Kyoto, Japan’s imperial capital. Even without the
accompanying literary passage, scenes from this novel were so
familiar that every educated person could recognize the source.

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 Plate 2-34 (right) Yamanaka Shinten’ō
(1822–1885), Landscape. Hanging scroll,
ink on satin, 150 x 51.2 cm. Collection of
Gerald and Alice Dietz, Plano, Texas.
Shinten’ō was most famous in his lifetime
as a Confucian scholar and imperial
loyalist. He also painted consciously
amateurish landscapes inspired by those of
the Chinese literati, complete with poems
in Chinese, like the one on this painting
that expressed affection for the literati
proclivity of communing with nature.

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Plate 2-35 (above) Kaihō Yūshō Plate 2-37 (below) Ōtagaki Rengetsu (1791–1875),
(1533–1615), The Four Scholarly Summer Tea Bowl (natsu chawan), mid-19th century.
Pastimes, late 16th–early 17th century. Earthenware with overglaze slip and underglaze
Pair of six-panel screens, ink, color, and iron, 4.8 x 15.6 cm. Saint Louis Art Museum. Gift of
gold leaf on paper, 162. 6 x 347.3 cm. J. Lionberger Davis, by exchange, 121:1988. Rengetsu
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, was one of the few celebrated women artists of
Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: William pre-modern Japan. As a youth, she studied
Rockhill Nelson Trust, 60–13/1, 2. calligraphy, waka poetry, and the game of go, which
Photo: Jamison Miller. she later briefly taught. After the deaths of her
husband and children, she became a Buddhist nun
Plate 2-36 (left) Kitagawa Utamaro and began to make pottery on which she inscribed
(1753?–1806), Snake and Lizard, from the her own poems. She supported herself by selling
picture book Selected Insects (Ehon mushi these wares to customers who appreciated their
erabi), 1788. Two-page spread from a unpolished, amateurish appearance and also enjoyed
color woodblock printed album, 21.6 x reading her poetry.
31.7 cm. The Minneapolis Institute of
Arts. Gift of Louis W. Hill, Jr, P.75.51.130.
The young and then relatively unknown
Utamarō was hired by the up-and-
coming publisher Tsutaya Jūzaburō
(1750–1797) to create fifteen illustra-
tions for this early anthology of playful
and modern kyōka (“crazy verse”) that
parodied classical waka poetry. It was
one of the earliest printed books to
feature illustrations in color.

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Plate 2-38 (right) Tanabe Chikuunsai I 6. Appreciation of Changing

(1877–1937), Longevity Mountain, 1932. Sooted
Seasons
bamboo, lacquered bamboo, and rattan, 42.5 x
The islands of Japan, now one of
24 x 23.5 cm. Gift of Elizabeth and Willard Clark
to the Clark Center at the Minneapolis Institute
the most industrialized, densely
of Arts, 2013.30.21a,b. Chikuunsai, one of the populated places on earth, are even
earliest and best bamboo artists in Japan, today covered with an abundance of
specialized in innovations in basketry tech- lush forests, mountains, rivers, and
niques adapted from Chinese models. He
streams, and populated by many
founded a school of ikebana flower arranging
species of indigenous animals, birds,
that specialized in displays for Chinese-style
sencha tea ceremonies, which he also practiced.
and insects. Pre-modern Japanese
Acclaim for his art internationally helped create literature is famous for its poignant
a booming market for Japanese bamboo arts and descriptive allusions to nature.
in the West. Visual arts, architecture, and gardens
are equally renowned for their
Plate 2-39 (below) Genga (active early 16th
sensitive use of natural materials,
century), Flowers and Birds in a Landscape, ca.
1520. Pair of six-panel screens, ink, colors, and
especially wood, paper, grasses, plant
gold on paper, 145.5 x 314.4 cm. Freer Gallery of dyes, clay, bamboo, and lacquer;
Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. and their arts brim with evocative
Purchase, F1971.1–2. This is one of the earliest imagery of the creatures and radiant
known Japanese screen paintings to convey
features of the land. Many of these
awareness of the transience of time in its
references are seasonally specific,
juxtaposition of natural imagery of springtime,
on the right, with that of autumn, on the left.
which has led to generalizations that

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pre-modern Japanese citizens lived ecological problems, such as the Plate 2-40 (below) Flower vase with springtime

a life in tune with nature’s cyclical widespread deforestation of highly ikebana flower arrangement. Vase: Muromachi
period, 15th–16th century, copper metal alloy.
rhythms, reflective of the country’s prized hinoki (cypress) wood used
Flowers: baimo (a type of bulbous lily) and
relatively long spring and autumn to construct the finest buildings
yamabuki (Japanese kerria; shrub of rose family).
seasons. This appreciation for nature and Buddhist statuary. The horrific Photo: Kei Kondo, courtesy of Koichi Yanagi Oriental
is generally identified as deriving events of the March 11, 2011 Tohoku Fine Arts, New York. Ikebana is an art form whose
from attitudes imparted by the region earthquake, tsunami, and roots can be traced to the ancient Buddhist practice
culture’s religious traditions, both nuclear power disaster, reveal an of placing offerings of flowers to the Buddha on
temple altars. During the fifteenth century, it began
native (Shinto) and imported (Daoist escalation of these long-standing
to evolve into a secular practice with various
and Buddhist). conflicts between humans and
schools that taught standardized styles for flower
Recently, such romanticized nature.19 Yet, it cannot be denied arrangement. Ikebana celebrates the beauty of
notions about the Japanese proclivity that Japanese crafts makers and plants in a minimalist display, carefully orchestrated
for nature have been reassessed.18 designers possess a deep sensitivity by the hands of its practitioners.
Affection for nature has come to be in their handling of natural materials
regarded as a cultural construct, not and are masters at evoking the
a love of nature in its untamed form. beauty of the natural world,
Because the country’s topography especially its seasonal permutations.
has limited the population centers
to only about one-third of the land
mass, regular encroachment on its
wild terrain for resources people
need to survive has caused serious

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Plate 2-41 (above) Attributed to Plate 2-42 (opposite below) Taniguchi

Hishikawa Morohira (active 1704–1711), Yoshio (b. 1937), View of distant
Hanami (cherry blossom viewing parties). mountains from the interior of the
Detail from one of a pair of six-panel Nagano Prefecture Shinano Art Museum,
screens, ink, color, and gold leaf on paper, completed 1989. Photo: David M.
93.8 x 242.6 cm. Feinberg Collection. As Dunfield, 2003. The water garden
evident in this screen, the blossoming alongside this starkly modern building
of cherry trees becomes an occasion to features a traditional “borrowed
suspend the activities of daily life and scenery” (shakkei) technique that links
gather under their boughs for gay the building and its adjacent garden
parties that include music, dancing and through the screen of trees to distant
the drinking of plenty of saké. mountains beyond.

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Plate 2-43 (below) Gardeners at work

in the gardens of Nijō Castle, Kyoto.
Photo: Patricia J. Graham, May 2005.
The careful pruning of trees and
grasses and the sweeping away of
debris are ongoing tasks of gardeners
in Japan. Although intensely mani-
cured, Japanese gardens convey an
impression of the sweeping grandeur
and irregularity of nature.

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 7. Rituals Order Daily Life
As mentioned earlier in this
chapter, Confucianism and Daoism
influenced the development of
Shinto and Buddhist ritual practices
in Japan. Confucianism, an
ethical creed, advocated values of
respectfulness, honesty, diligence,
and self-cultivation. It also apotheo-
sized ancestors, whose favor was
cultivated through acts of piety
both in the home and at shrines
and temples. Daoism emphasized
complementary yin (female) and
yang (male) forces of energy that
emanated from the infinite void
at the center of the universe, from
which all matter appeared, and
which governed the five elements
(wood, metal, fire, water, and earth).
Its practitioners performed complex
Plate 2-44 (left) Sakai Dōitsu
(1845–1913), Mt Hōrai, Isle of rituals to assure personal protection,
the Immortals. Hanging scroll, worldly benefits, and even immor-
ink, gold, and color on silk, 99 tality. Daoism, Confucianism, and
x 32.4 cm. Collection of Gerald other Chinese folk beliefs, together
and Alice Dietz, Plano, Texas.
with aspects of Esoteric Buddhism
Rinpa artist Dōitsu, disciple of
and Shugendō (an indigenous
Hōitsu (Plate 1-63) has placed
a red sun in the center of the Japanese hybrid Buddhist belief
picture above a distinctive system based on shamanistic
towering island floating in a folk practices drawn from Shinto
sea, a representation of the and Daoism), contributed to the
legendary Daoist isle of the
development of a set of native
immortals, identified by the
Japanese ritualistic practices known
presence of cranes, a tortoise,
and a cluster of pine, plum, as Onmyōdō, the “Way of yin-yang,”
and bamboo (all Daoist that featured rites for personal
symbols of longevity). and national protection, fortune-
Mt Hōrai imagery has long telling, setting of the calendar, and
appeared in various types
talismans, for example, ōtsue pictures
of Japanese art, including
(see Plate 1-52).20
mirrors, kimono, various
objects of daily use, and as Very early in Japanese history,
a rock feature in Japanese the systematic celebration of
gardens. festivals throughout the year and

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personal religious practices were

devised to guarantee purification
and protection of individuals, local
communities, and the nation. Some
seasonal festivals are religious,
others only marginally so. Some are
celebrated nationally, while others
take place at individual temples
and shrines in specific geographic
regions. In accordance with these
cyclical events, people make sure
that the decorations in their homes Plate 2-45 (above) Nail head cover in the form of the fungus of immortality, private residence
and workplaces and their personal Japan, mid-19th century. Bronze, length ca. 12 cm. The fungus of immortality (reishi) is a Daoist
accoutrements and clothing carry symbol, usually represented as seen here by a cluster of wild mushrooms. Daoists believe the
appropriate symbolic imagery. ingestion of this plant conferred long life. As such, it is an appropriate emblem to adorn the
wall of a Japanese home, where its presence would help protect the residents from disease.
Some symbols derive from
nature—birds, trees, flowers, and
insects—codified as seasonally Plate 2-46 (below) Attributed to Kanaya Gorosaburō III (active 1772–1781), Rabbit-shaped
specific in waka poetry—and others screen holders,18th century. Bronze, height 11.4 cm, length 12.7 cm. Photo courtesy of Toyobi
come from objects of the manmade Far Eastern Art. Rabbits are a popular motif in art because of their auspicious meanings. They

world that are associated with are one of the twelve zodiac animals and are popularly thought to inhabit the moon, where
they pound rice to make an elixir of immortality.
specific festivals. Not all imagery is
seasonally specific, however. Some
represents deities or auspicious
plants that offer protective benefits
year round, for example, the Seven
Gods of Good Fortune (Shichi
Fukujin).21
The timing of annual observances
required an accurate calendar,
which the Japanese adopted from
China in the early seventh century. yang aspects) and twelve “branches” abolished only in 1873 when Japan
Based on Daoist cosmology, the (jūnishi; the twelve animals of the adopted the Gregorian calendar.
calendar adopted mixed lunar and zodiac—mouse, ox, tiger, rabbit, The diversity of Japanese festivals
solar calendars. Twelve months, dragon, snake, horse, sheep monkey, and their transformation over time
corresponding to the phases of the cock, dog, and boar). Chinese reveals the complex cultural forces
moon, comprised each lunar year. Daoist cosmology influenced beliefs that have shaped Japanese society.
According to the solar calendar, about certain combinations of these Since the Heian period (794–1185),
years, and individual days, were elements, and days designated as the most important annual festivals
designated by a complex Chinese auspicious or unlucky required are those that owe their origin
system of combining ten “stems” the holding of special rites. This to Daoist shamanistic rites that
(jikkan; the five elements in yin and cumbersome system was formally marked the five sekku (dates marking

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Plate 2-47 (right) Men

hoisting a mikoshi during
the Mifune festival in
Arashiyama. Photo:
David M. Dunfield, May
1981. During many
Shinto festivals, kami
leave their homes within
the shrines to mingle
with devotees but
remain unseen within
the portable shrines
(mikoshi).

seasonal passages). These dates—

1/1, 3/3, 5/5, 7/7, and 9/9—derived
from belief in the power of multiple
emanations of certain numerals.22
At first reserved for the court, by
the sixteenth century, as commoner
culture blossomed, these rituals
Plate 2-48 (left) Nakajima Raishō (1796–1871), Annual Festivals of Kyoto. Pair of hanging
scrolls, ink and color on silk, each 99 x 41.8 cm. Collection of Gerald and Alice Dietz, Plano, had evolved into popular national
Texas. Raishō illustrates the five sekku festivals on the right. From lower right to upper festivals.
center these are New Year’s dancers by a pine tree display, the third month’s doll festival, Shinto shrine festivals (matsuri)
boys dressed as samurai for boy’s day in the fifth month, a man and boy carrying bamboo feature purification rites. Central
streamers for the Tanabata festival in the seventh month, and a woman scenting a kimono
to these are festive components,
hung on a rack with chrysanthemums for the chrysanthemum festival in the ninth month.
often exuberant occasions for wild
(The festival associated with the woman with flowers in a basket atop her head at upper
left remains unidentified although she may represent a dancer in a Tanabata parade.) The abandon. Some matsuri reflect the
left scroll features an assortment of other annual festivals: the autumn moon viewing faith’s agrarian origins and celebrate
festival at upper center, dancers participating in the summertime festival to the dead springtime planting and autumn
(obon) at lower left with a group of spectators gazing skyward to their right to watch the harvests. Others emerged as society
burning of a mountain during the Daimonji festival at the end of the obon season (to help
became more urbanized, to meet
ancestral spirits find their way back to the spirit world), the ninth month bull festival at
Kōryuji at center, the Setsubun bean throwing festival to ward off evil spirits on the last
the needs of urban dwellers, for
day of the year at upper right, and the first month’s festival dedicated to Ebisu, one of the example, those to ward off summer-
Seven Gods of Good Fortune, at upper left. time plagues or to offer prayers for

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Plate 2-49 Unidentified Artist of the Kano School, The Enthronement Ceremony of Empress Meishō, mid-17th
century. One of a pair of six-panel screens, ink, color, and gold leaf on paper, 151.1 x 345.4 cm. The
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 78–12/1. Photo: Mel McLean. Chinese court rituals, introduced in the sixth
century, influenced the development of Japanese Shinto-based imperial rites. The ascension ceremonies
for an emperor (or more rarely, an empress), heir to the Shinto sun goddess, were conducted for the benefit
of both the Shinto spirits and the people of Japan. This screen gives some indication of the regality of the
occasion and epitomizes the opulent aesthetic of karei.

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Plate 2-52 (opposite top) Unknown

Artist, Presentation of the Demon’s
Head to the Emperor, the final
episode of The Demon of Oeyama
(Ōeyama Shuten Dōji), early 18th
century. Handscroll, ink and
colors on paper, 30.3 x 506.5 cm.
Plate 2-50 Kinoshita Yuri, Shinpu (fresh breeze), Plate 2-51 One course of a formal kaiseki meal, Collection of Gerald and Alice
woven tea house, 2008. Bamboo, wood, linen Mankamero Restaurant, Kyoto, May 2003. Dietz, Plano, Texas. A popular
paper and kozo paper. Photo: Masaye Photo: Nicole Hipp. The Japanese ritualize the legend recounts how, in the
Nakagawa. The artist, whose Kyoto family has experience of dining in its kaiseki cuisine, which eleventh century, a giant ogre and
long produced fine kimono fabrics, is now a consists of a number of courses served in small his band of marauding cronies
Seattle-based lighting designer who aims to dishes on elegant trays. The menu changes with wreaked havoc on villages near
create what she describes as “woven light.” the seasons and the courses comprise a balance Kyoto. The emperor dispatched a
The photograph shows a tea ceremony being of food preparation methods, tastes, and colors. warrior and his five retainers to
performed in her portable tea house on display quell the beast. In this triumphant
at the Bellevue Arts Museum, University of scene, after decapitating the
Washington, January 2013. creature they carry its head back
to Kyoto for presentation to the
successes in commerce. Buddhist of a tight-knit social order abound emperor. Illustrated many times
over the centuries, this satirical
festivals celebrated universally by and are manifested in expressions of
version features mice as the
all sects include the birth, enlight- both violence and humor. Japanese
samurai and a cat as the demon.
enment, and death dates of the literature overflows with stories of
historical Buddha Shaka. In all these very human emotions, the Plate 2-53 (opposite bottom)
cases, festivals reinforce communal earliest of which appear in Shinto’s Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858),

solidarity. creation myths that envisioned The Night Attack, Part 3: Achieving
the Goal (Youchi san, honmō), from
The importance of ritual in Shinto kami as temperamental
the series The Storehouse of Loyal
Japanese life has also imprinted and prone to emotional outbursts. Retainers (Chūshingura), ca. 1840.
itself on the structure of many facets Described as passionate, hateful, Horizontal ōban colored wood-
of secular culture, from the tea greedy, needy, vulnerable, generous, block print, 25.6 x 36.6 cm. The Art
ceremony to martial arts practices, protective, loving, playful, and Institute of Chicago, Frederick W.

other etiquette-based aesthetic arts, boisterous, their characters mirrored Gookin Collection, 1939.1336. This
print portrays the most famous
and even the preparation and service those of the Japanese people them-
and heroic act of selfless bravery
of Japanese cuisine. selves. Later historical tales of in Japanese history that took place
military exploits recounted bloody on a snowy night in the year 1703
8. Penchant for Emotional battles in chilling detail, emphasizing when a group of forty-seven
Extremes vivid descriptions of treachery and samurai, whose master had been

Perhaps because of the decorous often valorizing the tragic, noble wrongly forced to commit seppuku
(ritual suicide), attacked and killed
and formal nature of much of heroes of those on the losing side.
the deed’s perpetrator. Afterwards,
Japanese religious and secular life, As with the popularity of horror the rōnin (masterless samurai) who
the need for relief from tensions movies in today’s world, ghost tales participated in this vendetta were
accrued by adherence to demands that became especially popular in the sentenced to seppuku themselves.

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Plate 2-54 (left) Suzuki Kisei

(active 1850–1860), Female
Ghost Coming to Life Out of a
Painting. Hanging scroll, ink and
light color on silk with a painted
mounting, 164.5 x 47.5 cm.
Collection of Gerald and Alice
Dietz, Plano, Texas. The Japanese
believe that when a person dies
violently, without reconciling
emotional distresses or without
having proper funeral rites
performed on their behalf, their
spirits return to earth as ghosts
(yūrei) intent upon righting
these wrongs. This painting,
with its painted mounting, is
representative of a genre of
ghost paintings created in the
nineteenth century that feature
the ghost seemingly emerging
from the painting.

Plate 2-55 (right) Nagasawa

Rōsetsu (1754–1799), Puppies
Playing in the Snow Under a
Blossoming Plum Tree. Hanging
scroll, ink and light color on
silk, 98.8 x 36 cm. Collection of
Gerald and Alice Dietz, Plano,
Texas. Puppies playfully
frolicking in the snow is a
popular subject in Japanese art.

Plate 2-56 (opposite) Suzuki Kiitsu (1796–1858), The Courtesan Eguchi no Kimi Roping a Giant White Elephant. Hanging scroll, ink and color on
silk, 76.9 x 37 cm. Collection of Gerald and Alice Dietz, Plano, Texas. Eguchi no Kimi was a twelfth-century courtesan who ran a brothel where
the poet-priest Saigyō desired to stay the night during his wanderings. The two exchanged a series of erotic and religious-tinged poems when
she refused his admission. These later became the basis for a Nō play in which Eguchi no Kimi was portrayed as an incarnation of the Buddhist
Bodhisattva Fugen. Humorous adaptations of the subject generally portray the courtesan riding atop an elephant, Fugen’s avatar, but in a
comic twist she is here shown in diminutive form leading the giant, meek elephant with a slender rope made of strands of her own fine hair.

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Plate 2-57 (above) Bizen ware umbrella-shaped saké bottle, late Plate 2-58 (above) Yatsushiro ware saké bottle with inlaid slip design of
17th century. Unglazed stoneware, 23.8 x 17.1 cm. The Nelson- a plum branch, late 17th–early 18th century. Glazed stoneware with
Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: William inlaid white slip, 30.5 x 16.5 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
Rockwill Nelson Trust, 32–58/10. Photo: Tiffany Matson. Bizen Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: William Rockwill Nelson Trust, 32–59/7.
ware is most famous for its tea ceremony vessels, but potters Photo: Tiffany Matson. The large size and sophisticated design of a
there also made objects for everyday use, such as this fancifully plum branch (a Chinese symbol of purity) on this piece suggests that
shaped bottle. the intended client admired Chinese literati values.

beginning of the seventeenth century reflect local customs, and rely on One of the most telling examples
appealed to people’s visceral fears. the special characteristics of each of regionalism in the arts is the
In contrast are varied expressions region’s topography. Some arts arose wide variation in the appearance of
of humor, ranging from ribald to as money-making schemes of the ceramic bottles (tokkuri) for storing
erudite.23 local samurai overlords. Others and serving saké (rice wine). Since
reflect the ingenuity and teamwork the Edo period, they have been
9. Distinctions in Local and of entrepreneurial individuals and widely produced by local kilns,
Regional Culture groups of villagers. Often whole made to order for local saké brewers
Although Japan is a small nation, it towns have pooled their collective in standardized sizes to facilitate
has given rise to a multitude of local efforts to create distinctive products measuring the liquid into bottles
artistic traditions which depend marketed regionally, nationally, or that would be filled at these brewers’
on the availability of raw materials, even internationally. factories. Availability of locally

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Plate 2-60 (left) Tanba ware

saké bottle with design of
a heron, flowering plants,
and a poem, first half 19th
century. Stoneware covered
with white slip, underglaze
blue, and clear glaze, 32.7 x
20.3 cm. The Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art, Kansas City,
Missouri. Purchase: William
Rockwill Nelson Trust,
32-58/5. Photo: Joshua
Ferdinand. This stoneware
bottle, designed for use by
commoners, was clearly
meant to resemble more
refined and expensive blue
and white porcelains made
for more wealthy con-
sumers. Yet, its rugged
shape and unpolished
painting style marks it as
a mingei-style vessel.

Plate 2-59 (above) Arita or related ware saké bottle with slightly pinched sides, 18th
century. Porcelain with crackled celadon glaze, height 22.5 cm. The Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art, Kansas City Missouri. Purchase: William Rockwill Nelson Trust, 32–59/4.
Photo: Tiffany Matson. As a result of a booming interest in Chinese culture from the
late eighteenth century on, Japanese potters closely emulated Chinese ceramic styles
and techniques. One Chinese glaze particularly popular in Japan was celadon, here
applied thickly and augmented with large crackles in imitation of Chinese prototypes.

sourced raw materials, the income Plate 2-61 (right) Onda ware gourd-shaped

levels of the consumers for whom saké bottle with wave design, late 18th–early19th
century. Stoneware with freehand slip-trailed
they were made, and concomitant
design and shiny brown glaze, height 26.67
differences in taste account for their cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas
diverse appearances. The bottles City, Missouri. Purchase: William Rockhill
illustrated here come from a large Nelson Trust, 32–58/14. Photo: Tiffany Matson.
collection of about sixty assembled Potters in the village of Onda began produc-
in 1932 by Langdon Warner (see tion in the early eighteenth century and their
descendants still create similar wares today.
page 144) together with famed dealer
Originally made for local rural residents, under
Yamanaka Sadajirō (1865–1936) for the influence of Yanagi Sōetsu (see page 138),
the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Onda ware later became avidly sought after
possibly the largest such collection by collectors of mingei ceramics.

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 110 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

in the United States. Warner prob- seemingly insatiable consumer that confers upon them an air of
ably bought the whole collection desires to be fashionable, captured cosmopolitanism and sophistication.
because of his interest in illustrating in the word iki (the height of chic, Often, this fashion consciousness
the wide variety of design and discussed on pages 24–7). This is derived from appreciation for
technical possibilities in a particular fashion consciousness has long exotic foreign products. Due to the
art form. influenced the appearance of many limited availability and high costs
types of arts, especially those of many imported goods, and to
10. Fashion Consciousness associated with the élite members adapt these to native preferences in
Inspires Innovation of society and urban commoners, taste, Japanese artists and designers
Many Japanese artists and designers, for whom the urgency to appear have long been adept at modifying
both past and present, have not only up to date drives their choices of imported products for their own
been highly talented but also great furnishings for their homes, compels uses, whether they be Chinese,
entrepreneurs, who create well- them to construct structures that Korean, or Western. To do so,
designed products to satisfy befit their status, and to wear attire they often master complex foreign

Plate 2-62 (below) Warrior’s

hat (jingasa) with crest of the
Nabeshima warrior clan, late
18th–early 19th century.
Lacquered wood, mother-of-
pearl inlay, diameter 42 cm.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum
of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.
Purchase: William Rockwill
Nelson Trust, 32–202/23.
Photo: Jamison Miller.
Although high-ranking
warriors went into battle
and also attended ceremonial
processions wearing elaborate
lacquered iron helmets (see
Plate 1-38), they and their foot
soldiers would wear flatter or
peaked caps like this in their Plate 2-63 (above) Attributed to Fujiwara no Nobuzane (1176?–1265?), Portrait of the Poetess Saigū no Nyōgo
camps and during peacetime Yoshiko, from a set of images of The Thirty-six Immortal Poets, 13th century. Hanging scroll, ink and color on paper,
ceremonies and processions. 27.9 x 51.1 cm. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Purchase, F1950.24. The poetess
It is a finely designed work wears the voluminous and resplendent twelve-layered robe (jūni hitoe) fashionable among court ladies of the
of art, reflective of the fashion Heian period that engulfs her in colors emblematic of the seasons, referencing waka poetry of the period.
consciousness of the samurai Production of the multicolored hues of her garment was a technological feat of dyers working secretly in private
class.24 households, whose ladies vied with each other to be seen in garments of the most alluring and novel shades.

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 111

Plate 2-64 (left) Kosod

Kosode (small sleeve robe) with scenes of famous places of Kyoto,
second half 18th cent
century. Blue silk ground with paste-resist dyeing, silk and metallic
thread embroidery, 157.5
1 x 119.4 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City,
William Rockwill Nelson Trust, 31-142/14. Photo: Tiffany Matson.
Missouri. Purchase: W
During the eighteenth
eighteent century, Kyoto, the old imperial capital, had become a
popular tourist destination,
desti resulting in a fashion for portraying famous sites of
the city on women’s robes.

Plate 2-65 (below) Ch

Chokuan ware tea set, Kaguyama, Nara Prefecture, ca. 1940.
ware” stoneware with rice straw scorch marks. Kyūsū
Unglazed “Haniwa w
teapot), height 7 cm, diameter 9.5 cm; five teacups, height 4.5 cm,
(side-handled teapo
yusumashi (water cooler; a spouted dish into which boiling
diameter 7.5 cm; yus
kettle is poured to cool before dispensing it into the teapot).
water from the kettl
USA. Following the rise in popularity of the Chinese-style
Private Collection, U
sencha tea ceremony after the invention of the delicately flavored gyokurō
(“jade dew”) tea in 11835, a new craze for drinking steeped green leaf tea in the
nineteenth century eensued and set off a revolution in the world of ceramic
Japan. Throughout the country, potters began fabricating tea sets
production in Japan
many, as here, in unglazed native Japanese styles.
in great numbers, m

technologies. Sometimes new

technology allows for faster produc-
tion processes, larger and more
complicated structures, or simply
improves the appearance of the final
product, making it more competi-
tive in the marketplace. Japanese
consumers today are famous for their
Plate 2-66 (right) Unsigned, attributed to
love of high fashion and for products
Iwamura Sadao (1912–1944), Cabinet, ca. 1936.
that make use of the latest technology. Lacquer, crystal, mother-of-pearl, metal, 73 x
Continual demand by consumers 63 x 31 cm. Helen Foresman Spencer Museum
for innovative products helps drive of Art, University of Kansas. Purchase: Helen
the nation’s success in many techni- Foresman Spencer Art Acquisition Fund,

cally challenging, design-oriented 2011.0002. This lacquer object epitomizes the

Japanese love of the modern and exotic. Using
industries in world markets, including
traditional lacquering and inlay techniques,
electronics, computers, automobiles, the artist endowed the cabinet with the
architecture, fashion, and graphic streamlined proportions and designs of the Art
and industrial design. Deco movement, all the rage in 1930s Japan.

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 CHAPTER THREE
EARLY PROMOTERS
OF “ARTISTIC JAPAN”
1830s–1950s

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 114 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

Japan’s arts and crafts first became widely collected in a pivotal role in promoting Japan and its arts. Some
the West during the nineteenth century and simultane- considered linkages between Asian/Buddhist spirituality
ously exerted influence on artists, crafts makers, and and aesthetics as paramount. Others emphasized the
designers in diverse fields. This initial wave of interest novel designs of Japanese arts, which became catalysts
increased significantly after the Americans forcibly for new ideas about principles of modern design
opened the country to international trade in 1854, and that eschewed references to rigid historical styles. At
continued to impact attitudes towards Japanese design the same time, Japanese writers familiar with Western
through the early post-World War II years. The striking appreciation of their art forms began to promote their
designs on Japanese arts, with imagery of the natural country’s arts in the West to help their nation better
world or featuring vignettes from everyday life, were define its cultural identity in the global arena.
widely lauded for their abstract, asymmetrical and The Western individuals who served as arbiters of
dynamic compositions, and bold color palette, as well taste for Japan’s aesthetics and design during this
as their fine craftsmanship and sensitivity to the use of formative period gained their newfound knowledge via
raw materials. These arts inspired the Arts and Crafts various routes. Some had journeyed to Japan to work
and Art Nouveau movements, and facilitated creation for the Japanese government as technical experts or
of a broad new aesthetic inspired by Japan-derived professors at newly founded universities, as adventurers
design, known by the French term Japonisme. Writers, or entrepreneurs, or in the service of foreign govern-
both Western admirers and Japanese nationals, played ments or foreign trading companies. Others simply

Plate 3-1 View of the west court

entrance to the Japanese art
exhibition in the Palace of Fine
Arts at the World’s Columbian
Exposition, Chicago, in 1893.
Photo source: William Walton,
World’s Columbian Exposition
1893: Art and Architecture,
Edition of the Republic,
(Philadelphia: G. Barrie, 1893),
vol. 11, p. 105, collection of the
Thomas J. Watson Library,
Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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went as tourists, for stays often of several months’

duration, to see the sites and collect Japanese art at
the source. The tales, images, and objects they brought
back fueled the interests of those at home, whose own
exposure to the culture derived from the widespread
availability of Japanese arts at a multitude of venues
in their respective countries. Phillip Franz von Siebold
(see p. 124 below), in Japan in the 1820s and whose
writings on Japan date from the 1830s, was the first
influential Western writer and collector.
Several decades after Siebold’s return, a public display
at the 1862 London International Exposition of the
Japanese arts collection amassed in Japan by Sir
Rutherford Alcock (1809–1897), greatly stimulated
fascination with the country’s arts in Europe. Alcock,
who served in Japan from 1859 as Britain’s first official
minister and who later, in 1878, authored a book about
Japanese arts, was one of several Englishmen to write
on the subject in the 1870s and early 1880s.1 Two
others, Thomas W. Cutler (d. 1909) and George
Ashdown Audsley (1838–1925), were both architects
who each published deluxe limited edition volumes Plate 3-2 Section of a silk brocade. Described as probably woven in Kyoto

about Japanese fine and decorative arts aimed at in the early 18th century and used as an obi. Photo source: George
Ashdown Audsley, The Ornamental Arts of Japan (London: Sampson Low,
discerning collectors.2 Cutler’s book, A Grammar of
Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1882), collection of the Thomas J. Watson
Japanese Ornament and Design (1880), featured short Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 1, Section Third, plate XI. Textiles
introductions and many illustrations to Japan’s varied were among the most popular of all Japanese arts among early Western
arts, arranged by media. He apparently labored over collectors, who marveled at their designs and complex production
techniques. This example from Audsley’s book was one of many owned
the manuscript for eighteen years. It was intended
by the Parisian collector/dealer Siegfred Bing (see p. 122).
to update, with emphasis on Japanese design, the
influential landmark publication, A Grammar of
Ornament (1856), by another British architect, Owen full page color plates. Both were highly personal
Jones (1809–1874), one of the great reformers of the accounts that were based on second-hand sources,
British design movement in the mid-nineteenth century. not scholarly texts, and both were lavishly illustrated.3
Audsley’s book, The Ornamental Arts of Japan (1882), The detailed factual information included in these and
covered much of the same material as Cutler’s, with other books of this period was transmitted to the
some additional categories of decorative arts (paint- authors from Japanese advisers, chief of whom were
ings, textiles, embroidery, lacquers, cloisonné enamels, Hayashi Tadamasa (1851–1906) and Wakai Kenzaburo
encrusted work, metalwork, carved and terracotta (d. 1908), who both came to Paris for the 1878
modeled sculpture, and heraldry) featured in gorgeous Exposition Universelle as staff of the Japanese

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 116 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

government’s art exporting company, and who stayed exhibitions of Japanese National Treasures abroad, at
on afterwards as private art dealers. the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (1936, in celebration
Japanese government-sponsored displays and sales of the Tercentenary Celebration of Harvard University),
galleries in the halls of the international expositions at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin (1939), and at the
were among the most popular places where the public Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco
could see Japanese arts. These had begun with the (1939).5 These landmark exhibitions were all organized
Paris Exposition Universelle of 1867, where the samurai by the influential Society for International Cultural
lord of the Satsuma domain, not the central govern- Relations (Kokusai Bunka Shinkōkai or KBS), a semi-
ment, had sponsored the exhibition of Japanese independent agency that received money from the
materials. Among the many fairs in which the Japanese Japanese Foreign Ministry.6
later participated, undoubtedly it was the 1893 World’s This chapter describes twenty-eight individuals and
Columbian Exposition in Chicago that became a the influential texts they authored, which introduced
watershed moment for the Japanese because, for the the West to Japanese aesthetic and design principles
first time, the Japanese government had received from the 1830s to the 1950s. Writings of the early
permission to display art by the country’s pre-eminent post-war period are included here because many
artists in the Palace of Fine Arts, not in the building writers active in the early part of the twentieth century
designated for displays of industrial arts, an honor continued to publish until then. The biographies of
accorded to no other non-Western nation.4 these individuals are presented within groupings
Concurrent with the expositions, both Japanese and defined by their professions or fields of expertise to
foreign entrepreneurs began to open privately run provide a sense of how their perceptions about what
commercial establishments to sell Japanese arts and aspects of Japanese design they considered the most
crafts in major cities across Europe and the United significant were influenced by their professional
States. Exhibitions of Japanese arts and crafts at training. Within these categories, the biographies are
esteemed European and American art museums soon presented chronologically according to their year of
followed, organized by both foreign and Japanese birth. This admittedly subjective selection represents
curators. Interest in educating the public about design an attempt to identify those whose writings were
was, in fact, the early mission of major art museums broadest and most influential in their own day. Some
in the West, including the Victoria and Albert Museum of the names will be familiar and others may not. My
in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New selection omits authors whose impact was limited
York, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. These because of the nature of their publications (such as
museums sought to collect art that served as models the early writers discussed above who authored only
for artists and designers, and Japanese arts, highly expensive limited edition publications), who did not
admired for their novel and arresting designs, were hold themselves out as experts and produced only
collected by museums for this purpose. At first these brief articles and reviews in popular magazines or
museums showcased objects, including loans, gifts newspapers, who penned mainly narrowly focused
and bequests from private individuals, as well as from studies on particular art forms or individual artists,
museum purchases, but in the 1930s, as cultural exhibition, private collection, or museum collection
diplomacy before the outbreak of World War II, the catalogues, and official Japanese government publi-
Japanese government sponsored three major cations (on Japanese arts exhibited at international

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Plate 3-3 (left) Vantine’s Curio Room,

New York. Postcard, featuring a variety
of Japanese wares for sale, ca. 1900.
A. A. Vantine & Co., one of the most
successful mercantile establishments
to sell imported Japanese goods, had
its main showroom at 5th Avenue and
39th Street in New York City. The
company was founded around 1866
and remained in business through the
1920s. It billed itself as “the most
interesting store in the world ... an
ever-changing exposition of antique
and modern works of art from each
nook and corner of Japan, China,
Turkey, Persia, India, and the Holy Land.”

expositions abroad). I also omit art dealers and similar types of arts, their writings reflect their personal
collectors who did not themselves write about their interests, agendas, and viewpoints, and resulted in a
passion for Japanese art, although these people are plurality of perspectives on Japanese culture and its
mentioned within the context of writers with whom arts. Generally, although these early writers sought to
they associated. explain the distinctive qualities of Japanese aesthetics
For a significant number of the men surveyed below, and design in relation to Japan’s culture, often empha-
their engagement with Japan took place in multiple sizing its religious beliefs, they also compared Japanese
dimensions as a consequence of or ancillary to their arts, sometimes naively, to products made in the West.
professional lives. Many of these individuals knew Nevertheless, their enthusiasm, sincerity, studiousness,
each other or their writings, and they frequently and the insights gleaned from their obvious delight in
developed their ideas within overlapping social net- the art to which they had access merit our attention.
works. However, although collectively they admired

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art, an illustrated woodblock book

ARTISTS
by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849).
AND ART La Farge is distinguished for author-
PROFESSORS ing the first published essay on
Japanese art by a Western painter,
John La Farge (American, in 1870.7 In it he interspersed his
1835–1910) own observations on the distinctive
Born in New York City to French design qualities of Japanese art with
parents and raised bilingually, La those of earlier writers, emphasiz-
Farge was one of the earliest and ing four important characteristics:
most influential American artists a bird’s eye perspective for defining
to introduce Japanese design and depth, love of caricature, composi-
aesthetics to the West through his tions emphasizing asymmetrical
writings and lectures, and through “occult balance,” and harmonious
Plate 3-4 John La Farge (1835–
1910), Portrait of Our Landlord, the its influences on his own art, includ- and natural use of colors.8 Most
Buddhist Priest Zenshin San, at the ing painting, murals, and stained importantly, he recognized that the
Door of the Clergy House, Iyemitsu glass. He probably became aware of genius of Japanese artists as design-
Temple, Nikko, 1886. Watercolor and ers lay in their successful blending of
Japanese art while living in Paris in
gouache over graphite on off-white
1856 with a cousin, whose friends two opposite aesthetics of abstraction
woven paper, 22.4 x 25.1 cm.
included Philippe Burty (p. 140) and and realism.9 La Farge collected and
Collection of Bill and Libby Clark. La
Farge sketched and painted many Theodore Duret (p. 141). There, he read Western language books about
watercolors during his stay in Japan. made his first purchase of Japanese Japan, among them Japanese Homes
and Their Surroundings by Edward
Sylvester Morse (p. 125), in prepa-
ration for a trip to Japan in 1886
with his friend, the distinguished
writer Henry Adams (1838–1918).
Adams and La Farge traveled to
Japan “as seekers of nirvana”10
(Buddhism’s escape from reincarna-
tion), though more practically, La
Farge sought inspiration for a church
mural commission back home.
They had as guides the two most
famous Bostonian Buddhists, Ernest
Fenollosa (p. 134) and collector Dr
William Sturgis Bigelow (1850–
1926), cousin to Adam’s wife. While
there, La Farge also met Okakura
Kakuzō (p. 136), who tutored him
in Chinese spiritual philosophies
of Daoism and Confucianism.11

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Plate 3-5 Attributed to Kubota Beisen The trip also turned La Farge into before returning to San Francisco to
(1852–1906), Patrol in China, 1894–1895. an avid collector of many types of apprentice as a lawyer. He first vis-
Original drawing, ink and watercolor on
Japanese arts, including books of ited Japan briefly in 1893 on a world
paper, sheet 24.1 x 33 cm. Saint Louis Art
designs for fans, stencils (katagami), tour, financed by an inheritance from
Museum. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles A.
Lowenhaupt, 867:2010. Kubota Beisen, textile fragments, ceramics, lacquers, his late wife. Instantly enchanted,
whom Frank Brinkley (p. 132) also woodblock prints, sword guards, and he returned the following year for a
admired, was a Kyoto native who moved Buddhist paintings. La Farge later lengthier stay. Scholarly and modest
to Tokyo to work as a journalist-illustrator reflected on his lifelong attraction by nature, he first set out to master
for a popular newspaper, which sent him
to Japanese art in his 1890 book, An the language, spoken and written,
to the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895)
Artist’s Letters from Japan.12 then proceeded to study traditional
front, from which he produced illustrated
stories of the battles. His sketches, such painting himself because he consid-
as this one, served as models for wood- Henry Pike Bowie (American, ered the art as key to understanding
block prints inserted into the newspaper. 1847–1920) the culture.13 Settling first in Kyoto
Beisen’s mastery of sketching from nature Born in Annapolis, Maryland, and where he met his mentor, painter
is evident in this drawing.
raised in San Francisco, Bowie grad- Kubota Beisen (1852–1906), who
uated from university there and then specialized in traditional Japanese-
embarked on a grand European tour style painting (Nihonga), he later

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moved to Tokyo. Bowie met with and

studied from many of the leading
painters of his day, but he held such
high admiration for Beisen that on
the first page of his seminal book,
On the Laws of Japanese Painting,14
he wrote:
Dedicated to the memory of
Kubota Beisen a great artist and
kindly man whose happiness
was in helping others and whose
triumphant career has shed
enduring luster upon the art of
Japanese painting.
Subsequent appreciation of Beisen
has been overshadowed, however,
by that of other Nihonga artists from
Tokyo whom the more celebrated Plate 3-6 Unknown Artist,
scholars Ernest Fenollosa (p. 134) active Edo period, Kan’ei
and Okakura Kakuzō (p. 136) avidly era (1624–1644) to Keian
promoted. Bowie did not approve era (1648-1652), Dancing
Courtesan. One from a
of Fenollosa, who never studied
set of eleven panels, ink
painting himself, and disagreed with
and color on gold leafed
the latter’s insistence that Japanese paper, 75.3 x 37.4 cm.
painters should adapt their styles Museum of Fine Arts,
to sell works abroad. Bowie’s eru- Boston, Denman Waldo
dite, succinct, and highly personal Ross Collection, 17.1091.
Photograph © Museum
book reveals his deep affection for
of Fine Arts, Boston,
Japanese painting. Although it
2013.
provides a short history of painting,
the book emphasized techniques: use
of the brush and ink, and names for Denman Waldo Ross (America, which he only turned after gradua-
various types of brush strokes; paint- 1853–1935) tion. Around 1889, he began a long
ing materials; methods of applying A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Ross career as a professor of design and
color; principles of proportion, moved to Boston at age eight and art theory at Harvard University, in
shape, and design; the importance through family connections mingled the same department that Langdon
of seasonally appropriate allusions; with intellectual and élite members Warner (p. 144) joined later. Follow-
common subjects; aesthetic prin- of Boston society. He earned an ing a family tradition, Ross served
ciples beginning with the importance undergraduate degree and then a from 1895 as a Museum of Fine
of capturing the spirit of the subject doctorate in political economy at Arts Boston trustee and amassed a
portrayed; and application of seals Harvard in 1875. From a young age vast collection of a wide variety of
and signatures. he had shown interest in painting to arts from various world cultures,

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including Japan, which he donated Arthur Wesley Dow (American,

to the Museum of Fine Arts. His 1857–1922)
interest in Japan came from diverse The foremost art educator of his Plate 3-7 Attributed to Arthur

sources, including the writings of Wesley Dow (1857–1922), Bird

time, from Ipswich, near Boston,
on a Persimmon Branch, early 20th
art historian James Jackson Jarves (p. Dow became intrigued with the
century. Stencil (katagami), cut
139) and several illustrious collectors landscape prints of Utagawa Hiro- mulberry bark paper, 22.86 x
who were his acquaintances: Charles shige (1797–1858) and Katsushika 27.3 cm. Helen Foresman
Lang Freer (1854–1919) and Isabella Hokusai (1760–1849) while study- Spencer Museum of Art,
Stewart Gardner (1840–1924). ing art in Paris from 1884 to 1889. University of Kansas. Museum

Unlike Jarves, who never visited purchase: Lucy Shaw Schultz

Inspired by their work, he began
Fund, 2002.0003. The Japanese
Japan, Ross made three trips, in experimenting with woodblock
influence in this stencil is evident
1908, 1910, and 1912. He developed printing in the early 1890s, becoming in the asymmetrical composition,
his ideas about design education the first American artist to perfect delicate rendering of a close-up
and theory in conjunction with two the technique. His prints were first view of the natural world, and the
close compatriots, Arthur Wesley exhibited in 1895 at the Museum clear, flat, dark–light patterning

Dow (p. 121) and Ernest Fenollosa of the forms. The piece was once
of Fine Arts Boston. Their clear flat
in Dow’s personal collection, and
(p. 134), and presented them in an patterns and compositions revealed
although it was originally thought
influential book, A Theory of Pure obvious Japanese influences, as noted to be an actual Japanese stencil,
Design: Harmony, Balance, Rhythm, by art critic Sadakichi Hartmann (p. scholars have recently deduced
With Illustrations and Diagrams 142) in his 1902 book on American Dow himself created it.
(1907), aimed at aspiring artists.15
The book offers principles of design
rather than design history. In his
conclusion, Ross explained that the
study of design was important “to
induce in ourselves the art-living and
art-producing faculties. With these
faculties we shall be able to discover
Order and Beauty everywhere, and
life will be happier and better worth
living.”16 Convinced that design
concepts inherent in the Japanese
arts could serve as models, he wrote
about the Japanese emphasis on
asymmetrical compositional balance
(“occult balance,” the same term that
La Farge used) and commented on
the Japanese propensity for technical
perfection.17 This led him to caution
his students to pay attention to how
techniques depended on an under-
standing of the materials they used.

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art. Dow also became fascinated with American artists.21 His article began collection of Japanese ukiyoe prints
the potential for Japanese stencils to with the statement: “Japanese art is and crafts, including textiles and
assist in improving the composition the expression of a people’s devotion ceramics, sold off after his death
and technique of his own and his to the beautiful,” and concluded by (his textiles were acquired by the
students’ work. In Boston, he had noting that “all Japanese artists are Metropolitan Museum in 1896).
the opportunity to study the largest designers.” Dow cautioned that “[t]he Above all, he is known for fervently
collection of stencils amassed in the American artist is in danger of sac- promoting Japanese arts through the
West in the 1880s by William Sturgis rificing composition to realism; he, magazine he founded and edited, Le
Bigelow, whose prints were stored therefore, needs the stimulus of these Japon Artistique (Artistic Japan; pub-
at, and later donated to, the Museum matchless works of Eastern genius to lished in 36 issues between 1888 and
of Fine Arts.18 Langdon Warner draw out his inventive and creative 1891 in French, German, and English
(p. 144) organized an exhibition of powers.”22 He identified three charac- editions), the first ever popular
Bigelow’s stencils in 1910. Later in teristics of Japanese art that aspiring monthly art magazine. He intended
life, Dow collected stencils himself.19 artists should emulate: line, color this journal as a forum for educat-
Dow’s own association with the (“not limited by scientific laws”), and ing the European and American art
Museum of Fine Arts began in 1891 nōtan (literally “dark–light”), that he collecting public about Japanese art,
when he met Ernest Fenollosa (p. described as “not light and shadow, aesthetics, and culture, emphasiz-
134), who was then working there but an eternal principle of art, and the ing its beauty and creativity, and
as a curator, and for several years, Japanese compose in it with match-
beginning in 1893, Dow served less daring united to an unerring Plate 3-8 Paper Stencil (katagami) with design
as Fenollosa’s assistant. Through sense of the beautiful.”23 As already of scattered hollyhock leaves, 19th century.
Fenollosa, Dow also came to know mentioned in connection with the Mulberry bark paper and silk threads. Saint
Louis Art Museum. Gift of V. W. von Hagen,
Denman Ross (p. 120). Dow spent discussion of nōtan on pages 44–5, it
236:1931.
an extended period in Chicago, from was Fenollosa, perhaps as early as the
1899 to 1901, where he lectured on mid-1880s, who coined this expres-
his design theories, contributed to sion.24 Dow based his conception of
art journals, and exhibited his prints this design principle in large part on
at the Art Institute, influencing the his appreciation of Japanese stencils.
young Frank Lloyd Wright (p. 130).20
In 1895, he moved to New York City ART DEALERS
where he lived and taught art for the
duration of his career. Despite his
obvious love for Japanese art, Dow Siegfred Bing (German, natu-
only traveled to Japan once, a three- ralized French, 1838–1905)
month stay in 1903 during a round Bing was a wealthy Parisian art
the world voyage. As an educator, dealer and seminal figure in the art
Dow encouraged numerous students world of his day who spearheaded
to adopt Japanese design principles efforts to popularize Japonisme. His
in their art. He first wrote about gallery, La Maison de l’Art Nouveau,
these in an article in 1893, explain- established in the mid-1870s, gave
ing why he considered Japanese its name to the Art Nouveau move-
art such an important model for ment.25 Bing also had a large private

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providing ideas for Western design-

ers. Although he routinely included
examples of Japanese art from his
vast collection in its pages and
authored a few of the articles himself,
he cast his net widely for authors
and topics to address what encom-
passed Japan’s literary and dramatic
arts so as to broaden his readership
and place understanding of Japanese
arts within a larger cultural con-
text. Many European Japanophile
luminaries of his day wrote articles
for this journal, including British
Plate 3-9 After Hokusai, Master of the Old School. Photo source: Marcus Bourne Huish, Japan and Its
art dealer Marcus Huish (p. 123),
Art (London: B. T. Batsford, third edition, 1912), preface p. v. Although Huish featured many artists
Philippe Burty (p. 140), Theodore and different types of artworks in his Japan and Its Art, like Bing’s Artistic Japan, he interspersed its
Duret (p. 141), Louis Gonse (p. 142), pages with charming sketches like this one based on those of everyone’s favorite Japanese artist,
and Dr William Anderson (1842– Katsushika Hokusai.
1900), the foremost British collector
of Japanese prints and paintings, Art Society, a well respected art firm New Japan (Kaikoku gojūnen shi,
thereby giving it an air of author- that reproduced paintings, orga- 1909). His book, Japan and Its Art,
ity. To translate the journal into nized art exhibitions, and sponsored first published in 1889, was aimed
English, Bing engaged Huish. All the publications.27 He also collected “more for the dilettante than the
articles stressed the exquisite beauty Japanese art (and wrote about col- student,”28 and can be considered
of Japanese crafts, especially work- lecting in the journal Artistic Japan). a summation of the prevailing
manship in small-scale objects in Although he never traveled to attitudes towards Japanese art and
various media, such as wood, metals, Japan, Huish amassed considerable culture of his era. In the expanded
engraving, and lacquer. Unrelated to knowledge about Japanese art and third edition (published in 1912), he
the articles, most featured examples its culture, and edited and authored devoted the first 184 pages to discus-
of Japanese cut paper stencil patterns a number of significant publications. sions of various aspects of Japanese
(katagami) used for creating designs Editing projects included the Art culture that facilitated understand-
on textiles, which fostered the wide- Journal, to which he also contrib- ing of the subjects represented in
spread appreciation and collecting uted essays on Japanese art that he art and the motivations of artists.
of these materials.”26 eventually published in book form; In his prologue to that edition, he
the English language edition of the stated the book’s aim was first to
Marcus Huish (British, journal Artistic Japan published by give “an idea of the physical aspect
1843–1921) Siegfred Bing (p. 122); Transactions of Japan, its history, religion, people,
Huish trained as a lawyer at Trinity of the Japan Society, an organization and their mode of living, myths and
College, Cambridge, but worked which he helped found in 1891 and legends as illustrated in Art. Then,
professionally as an art dealer, for which he served as chairman; secondly, [to function as] a treatise
watercolorist, publisher, and writer. and the English edition of Count on its arts, especially those which we
He also served as director of the Fine Okuma Shigenobu’s Fifty Years of term ‘industrial’.”29 His observations

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 124 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

Plate 3-10 Kawahara Keiga (1786–ca. 1860), Artist’s Studio, from

the Four Accomplishments series. Hanging scroll, color on silk,
52.4 x 88.2 cm. National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden, Siebold
Collection, No. 1–1039. Keiga served as an official painter to
the Dutch residents of Nagasaki and in that capacity painted
scenes of daily life and customs in Japan as requested by von
Siebold. Here, he has portrayed a painter’s studio, a lovely
Japanese room adjacent to a garden, with the master at the
center putting finishing touches to a painting laid out on a
red cloth mat to protect the tatami, surrounded by his brushes,
ink, and other tools of the trade, while, within his view, his
apprentices put finishing touches on additional paintings.

echoed those of other authors of specimens and over 5,000 Japanese see his collection. Siebold tirelessly
his time, for example, how poetical objects, including a variety of promoted greater understanding of
sentiments of nature permeated all household goods, crafts, tools, ukiyoe Japanese people and culture, and
classes. His chapters covered paint- prints (including many books and for that Europeans consider him
ing, prints, sculpture in wood and single sheet prints by Hokusai), and the father of Japanese studies in the
ivory, lacquer, metalwork, pottery paintings, with the aim of furthering West. Although he did not comment
and porcelain, and embroideries and understanding of the Japanese on aesthetics and design per se, he
textiles (including two examples of people.30 In the early 1830s, Siebold was obviously a keen admirer of
stencil plates that he owned). This opened his house in Leiden to the Japanese craftsmanship and its
last section, he noted, was one of the public, to make his collections architecture. His legacy includes,
chapters new to the third edition, accessible to people. They became in addition to his vast collections,
because he especially wanted to the core of a new ethnographic numerous publications, the most
feature significant types of manufac- museum in that city, now the Dutch important of which is the monumen-
turing of arts of his own time. National Museum of Ethnology tal multi-volume tome, Nippon,
(Museum Volkenkunde), which was written in German, published
the first such institution in Europe. privately and by subscription
SCIENTISTS AND
Siebold was later pardoned and beginning in 1832, and republished
PHYSICIANS granted permission to return to many times over the decades, first
Japan, which he did in 1859 and in an expanded complete form by his
Phillip Franz von Siebold 1861, when he served as advisor to sons in 1897.32 This book has been
(German, 1796–1866) the shogun on how to introduce described as an insider’s account of
A physician, Siebold worked in Japan Western science to the country. His the land and people of Japan, and
as a medical doctor for the Dutch collection was legendary; the French featured well ordered assessments
East India Company from 1823 to art critic Louis Gonse (p. 142) wrote of Japanese religious traditions, the
1829, when he was expelled because in his book, L’Art Japonais (1883), of arts, history, agriculture, industry,
of alleged espionage with the his visit to see Siebold’s vast painting science, and the country’s natural
Russians. A methodical and studious collection,31 and other prominent environment. Siebold’s influence in
observer, while in Japan Siebold had early French writers on Japanese art the English speaking world was
amassed a collection of botanical also made pilgrimages to Leiden to limited, however, to an 1841

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anonymously edited British volume, Morse conducted the first ever collector William Sturgis Bigelow,
Manners and Customs of the Japanese, archaeological excavation in Japan journeying to Japan for the first time.
in the Nineteenth Century, that drew at shell mounds near Tokyo, which He also mentored Ernest Fenollosa
heavily on his writings. led to his nearly three-year appoint- (p. 134) and Percival Lowell (p. 126).
ment to teach zoology at the recently Morse’s scientific mind informed
Edward Sylvester Morse established Tokyo Imperial Univer- his appreciation of Japanese arts.
(American, 1838–1925) sity. From 1880 to 1914 Morse served He became an avid and systematic
A brilliant Harvard-trained zoolo- as director of the Peabody Museum collector of a variety of Japanese
gist, Morse had a passion for a of Archaeology and Ethnology in crafts and household objects,
type of marine shellfish known as Salem, during which time he including ceramics that he sold to
brachiopods. Upon learning they returned to Japan for briefer visits, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston
existed in the waters off Japan, he in 1881 and 1882, when he collected in 1889, the year before he was
traveled there in 1877, a chance numerous household objects and appointed Keeper of Pottery at that
encounter that led to his lifelong crafts for the museum. On his last museum. Morse, in part, owed the
fascination with Japanese culture. trip, he served as guide for his friend, acquisition to Denman Waldo Ross

Plate 3-11 Sumi-tsubo (carpenter’s ink pot), 19th century. Wood, iron, silk cord, and ivory, length 26 cm, height 10 cm. Private
collection, Japan. In his book Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings, Morse wrote not only about the appearance of Japanese
buildings and their construction methods, but also about the tools used by carpenters, whom he ranked higher than their Western
counterparts for their workmanship, patience, and creativity. He pointed out the importance of the sumi-tsubo (an inkpot and reel,
alongside of which is a cavity filled with ink-soaked cotton fibers) that the carpenters hand-carved themselves, which he illustrated
in a fine line drawing, and remarked that they were more precise than Western carpenters’ chalk lines.

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 Plate 3-12 Lower garden at Saihōji (Kokkedera, or Moss Temple), Arashiyama, Kyoto. Restored in 1339 by Zen priest
Musō Soseki (1275–1351). Photograph © sdstockphoto/istockphoto.com. This Zen temple garden is widely
acknowledged as the quintessential Japanese moss garden, whose atmosphere is permeated with an air of Buddhist
mystery known as yūgen. The pond around which the garden is organized is a vestige of an earlier incarnation as a
garden that visualized the Western Paradise of the Buddha Amida, central to Pure Land Buddhist beliefs.

(p. 120), who argued for its approval while in Japan. Although a scientist, Percival Lowell (American,
in his role as museum trustee, stating his books reveal his belief that the 1855–1916)
that “the collection [of 5,000 pieces] Japanese people’s lifestyle and work Born into a prominent Boston fam-
illustrates, better than any collection ethic contributed to the culture’s ily, Lowell is best remembered as the
of works of art which I have ever aesthetic sensibility. For example, astronomer and mathematician who
seen, the principle which underlies in describing the displays at an founded the Lowell Observatory in
all true artistic activity—the industrial exhibition Morse attended Flagstaff, Arizona. Prior to embark-
principle that it is not enough to in Ueno Park in Tokyo, he wrote of ing on that profession, however, he
invent new types of things, but each his awe of Japanese designs and use had such deep passion for Japan
type must be improved and perfect- of material, stating that “no words that he traveled there for prolonged
ed according to the ideal which it can describe the grace, finish, and visits between 1883 and 1893,
suggests to the imagination.”33 purity of design; these and other often in the company of his cousin
Morse’s writings include Japanese exquisite productions of the Japanese William Sturgis Bigelow. He also
Homes and Their Surroundings show their great love of nature and was mentored by Edward Sylvester
(1885), which he dedicated to their power to embody these simple Morse (p. 125). Lowell, an intrepid
William Sturgis Bigelow; Catalogue motifs in decorative art, and after adventurer and gifted linguist who
of the Morse Collection of Japanese seeing these it seems as if the quickly attained some competency
Pottery (1900),34 and Japan Day by Japanese were the greatest lovers in Japanese, is considered the first
Day (1917),35 the latter a compilation of nature and the greatest artists in American to sympathetically attempt
of the meticulous journals he kept the world.”36 to understand and explain the

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Japanese people and their culture. Japanese appreciation of their Museum (now the Victoria and
Among his books are Occult Japan, beauty is as phenomenal as is Albert Museum).41 One of his men-
or, The Way of the Gods (1895)37 and that beauty itself.40 tors at the school was the previ-
The Soul of the Far East, (1888),38 a He also commented on the poetic ously mentioned architect Owen
modest-sized but perceptive reflec- qualities of Japanese painting and Jones, to whose book, The Grammar
tion on how Asian and Japanese reli- perceptively noted that nature, not of Ornament, he contributed a
gious traditions fostered a spiritual man, is the artist’s ideal source of botanical drawing. Upon graduation,
world view that encouraged imagina- inspiration. These ideas gained wide Dresser lectured and wrote about
tion and intuitive appreciation of art. currency later among writers about botanical subjects as appropriate
Therein he commented: Japanese aesthetics and design, ornamentation for the “Arts-and-
Artistic perception is with him including Lafcadio Hearn (p. 133), Manufacture” industries, with par-
an instinct to which he intui- and also Imagist poets inspired by ticular reference to Japanese arts.42
tively conforms, and for which Asian spirituality, including Lowell’s Dresser, who visited and published
he inherits the skill of count- sister Amy Lowell (1874–1925) and articles about the major European
less generations. From the tips Ezra Pound (1885–1972). and American international exposi-
of his fingers to the tips of his tions, developed an even keener
toes, in whose use he is surpris- interest in Japan when he attended
ingly proficient, he is the artist INDUSTRIAL the 1862 International Exposition
all over. Admirable, however, DESIGNERS AND in London and saw Sir Rutherford
as is his manual dexterity, his ARCHITECTS Alcock’s collection. Following a
mental altitude is still more to visit to the Centennial Exposition
be admired; for it is artistic to in Philadelphia in 1876, he visited
perfection. His perception of Christopher Dresser (Scottish, Japan for over three months to pres-
beauty is as keen as his compre- 1834–1904) ent examples of British industrial
hension of the cosmos is crude; Dresser pioneered the field of arts as gifts to the Tokyo Imperial
for while with science he has not industrial design with well-designed, Museum, to counsel the Japanese on
even a speaking acquaintance, functional, machine-made products ways to improve the international
with art he is on terms of the for wide distribution. He was also marketability of their crafts indus-
most affectionate intimacy.39 a botanist, prolific writer, lecturer, tries, and to acquire Japanese art
Elsewhere in the book he observed and inveterate collector of Japanese for his own collection and for the
the Japanese passion for nature, stat- crafts and household goods. Dresser Tiffany Co., whose collection was
ing that trained as a designer at London’s known by, and perhaps influenced,
This love of nature is quite irre- new Government School of Design, John La Farge (p. 118), Edward
spective of social condition. All established to spearhead reform Sylvester Morse (p. 125), and Ernest
classes feel its force, and freely in the field of design through joint Fenollosa (p. 134). Because of con-
indulge the feeling. Poor as well study of art and science. There, nections he had made with Japanese
as rich, low as well as high, Dresser concurrently researched officials who had previously visited
contrive to gratify their poetic and published on botany. His educa- London, he was permitted to travel
instincts for natural scenery. As tion included the study of Japanese widely and allowed access to impe-
for flowers, especially tree flow- design through examples of artifacts rial art collections off limits to ordi-
ers, or those of the larger plants, collected by the school’s affiliate arts nary visitors. His book that followed
like the lotus or the iris, the institution, the South Kensington this trip, Japan: Its Architecture, Art,

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Plate 3-13 Kyoto ware saké ewer with design of

chrysanthemums in imitation of Dutch faience,
1840–1860. Earthenware with overglaze blue
enamel over a white ground, height 7.6 cm,
diameter 10.5 cm. Victoria and Albert Museum,
London, 603&LID-1877. This ewer was
purchased in 1877 from Londos & Co., who
probably acquired it from Christopher Dresser,
who had been in Japan earlier that year.

and Art Manufactures (1882), was a intensely in exhibitions, lectures and architecture professor of the new
travelogue in which he analytically publications, marveling that it had Imperial College of Engineering in
presented his impressions of Japan’s affected him more profoundly than Tokyo (now part of Tokyo Univer-
architecture and craft industries in his formal education.46 Throughout sity) without ever having designed a
detail.43 He expressed great admira- his career, Dresser created designs, building himself.47 There, he taught
tion for the work ethic of Japan’s often as advisor to small, specialized the first Western-trained Japanese
crafts makers and noted in his manufacturing firms, for ceramics, architects. He also designed a
preface the Japanese “national style furniture, textiles, wallpaper, carpets, number of notable public and private
of conventional ornament” and that glass, iron, and silver. Influenced by buildings in Japan, both before and
his book attempted “to explain how the approaches and design sensi- after leaving his teaching post in
architecture resulted from climactic bilities of Japanese crafts makers, 1884, many of which remain
and religious influences, and how his own work emphasized designs standing today. In Japan, Conder
the ornaments with which domestic suitable to the materials from which was befriended by Frank Brinkley
objects are figured, and the very they were fashioned, introduced the (p. 132), who also had come to Japan
finish of the objects themselves, are use of standardized components, to work for a Japanese institution.
traceable to religious teachings.”44 In and featured abstracted, simplified Like Brinkley, he spent the duration
his sophisticated understanding of natural motifs or fine geometrical of his life in the country, married
the relationship of architecture and patterns. Both prior to his trip and a Japanese woman, and sought to
aesthetics to the culture’s religious after his return, he was also involved transmit his knowledge of the culture
values, he stands alone among his with companies that imported to the Western public in numerous
contemporaries. Dresser marveled Japanese artifacts to London. lectures in Japan and in publications
not only at large monuments but also widely read abroad.48 Also like
at minutiae, such as the metalwork Josiah Conder (British, Brinkley, Conder studied Japanese
of nail head covers and door hinges, 1852–1920) painting with famed artist Kawanabe
that he declared “would supply the Conder trained as an architect at Kyōsai (1831–1889), about whom
art student with material for study, the University of London. In 1877, he authored a book and whose
and examples to copy, for weeks.”45 at the remarkably young age of paintings he collected. More
Subsequent to this trip, Dresser twenty-four, he somehow managed significant to the history of apprecia-
promoted Japanese arts more to secure a position as the first tion for Japanese design, however,

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were the books he wrote on flower Subsequent sections of the book Plate 3-14 Rikugien garden, Tokyo.

arranging and gardens. His book, explored flower arranging as an art Photo: Patricia J. Graham, May 2006.
A nearly identical view of this
The Flowers of Japan and the Art of form, beginning with a month-by-
garden was illustrated in a black
Floral Arrangement, on ikebana, month chart of flowers, then moving
and white collotype photograph by
was published in 1891 by a Japanese on to the history and theory of ike- K. Ogawa in Conder’s supplement
publisher.49 In its first part, he bana and a discourse on the philo- to his book Landscape Gardening
described the Japanese love of sophical basis for the classifications in Japan, there titled “Garden at
flowers throughout the seasons, and nomenclature for floral designs Komagome.” He described this lake
view as “remarkable for its serene
opening with the following remark: before delving into the particulars
and unassuming grandeur.” He
The flower charm which exists of the art, which he described with
noted that the rocks in the center
in Japan is not, however, great specificity. Condor stressed of the lake were “arranged to form
mainly one of pastoral associa- that practicing ikebana was a form of an open archway, in imitation of
tions, but is closely connected self-cultivation, commenting that a hollowed sea-rocks which are seen
with the national customs and “religious spirit, self denial, gentle- at various places near the Japanese
coast.”52 This beautiful stroll garden
the national art. The artistic ness, and forgetfulness of cares, are
was originally constructed in the
character of the Japanese people some of the virtues said to follow
late seventeenth century as part of
is most strikingly displayed in from a habitual practice of the art of an estate of a powerful samurai
their methods of interpreting the arrangement flowers.”51 His two vol- warrior. Today, it is a public park.
simpler of natural beauties.50 ume set of books on garden design,

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 130 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

Landscape Gardening in Japan and art and design aesthetics through his was considered one of the most
Supplement to Landscape Gardening mentor, Louis Sullivan, who owned important American collectors and
in Japan (1893), featured lithograph many books on the subject and dealers of Japanese woodblock
drawings in the first volume and collected Japanese art. One of those prints—he had thousands. Many he
collotype photographs by pioneer- books must have been Japanese sold to his architectural clients for
ing photographer Ogawa Kazumasa Homes and Their Surroundings by decoration in their homes, and he is
(1860–1929) in the second. This was Edward Sylvester Morse (p. 125). said to have made more money from
the first definitive publication on The 1893 World’s Columbian their sales than he did on the design
this subject in English. On the first Exposition, with its displays of of their houses. His role as a dealer,
page of his preface, Conder indicated Japanese arts of all sorts and actual however, had been somewhat
that he strove to reveal “that beneath Japanese buildings, must have overlooked (his autobiography
the quaint and unfamiliar aspects of further whetted his interest in only mentions his selling of prints)
these Eastern compositions, there Japanese design. His appreciation until 1980 when Julia Meech, then
lie universally accepted Art truths.” for Japanese prints began in the working as a curator at the Metro-
Thus, although he presented a short 1890s as well, through lectures at politan Museum, decided to investi-
section on historical gardens and the Chicago fair by Ernest Fenollosa gate the sources of acquisition of
their variety, his book emphasized (p. 134) and exposure to the art of the museum’s vast Japanese print
formalist “rules and theories” of the Arthur Wesley Dow (p. 121), who collection. Wright’s name was
art, which could be understood and lectured in Chicago, wrote for prominent among those from whom
adapted by his Western audience, Chicago art journals, and who had the prints were acquired. Wright
such as descriptions of rules for an exhibition at the Art Institute of also amassed a sizeable number of
garden proportion, scale, rhythm, Chicago of his Japanese-influenced other types of Asian arts, including
relationships between elements, and prints in that decade.54 Wright first Japanese screens, Buddhist paintings,
so forth.53 In his seeking of universal traveled to Japan in 1905, during textiles, and Asian ceramics, carpets,
art truths and linkage of art apprecia- which time he bought his first and sculptures (mainly Chinese), but
tion to morality, his ideas resonated Japanese prints, and the next year it was the prints that most seriously
with those of other art reformers of he curated the first exhibition of the piqued his interest. Their attraction
his age, such as Denman Waldo Ross prints of Utagawa Hiroshige at the to him lay in their abstract design
(p. 120) and Ernest Fenollosa (p. 134), Art Institute.55 So enamored was he qualities as well as their vague (to
among others. of Japanese prints that he authored him) spirituality, and he described
a book on the subject in 1912.56 his prints in terms of the values he
Frank Lloyd Wright Although he declined to admit to professed for himself: “democracy,
(American, 1867–1959) direct influences from Japan, and spirituality, purity, and harmony
America’s most notable twentieth- insisted that nature was his source with nature.”58
century architect, Wright is famous of influence, in his autobiography he
for his interest in Japanese art and wrote of his attraction to Japanese Bruno Taut (German,
architecture. When Wright came to spiritual traditions, in part from his 1880–1938)
Chicago to work as an apprentice own observations during visits to Taut was a modernist architect
architect after graduation from Japan and in part influenced by the who had fled to Japan in 1933 to
engineering school at the University writings of Okakura Kakuzō (p. 136), escape Nazi Germany. There, he
of Wisconsin in 1887, he was passages from whose books he would developed a deep appreciation for
immediately exposed to Japanese occasionally quote.57 By 1915 Wright traditional Japanese architecture,

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 Plate 3-15 Utagawa Hiroshige
(1797–1858), Camellias and
Sparrows in Falling Snow, ca. 1837.
Woodblock print with colors and
embossing, 38.7 x 17 cm. Art
Institute of Chicago, Clarence
Buckingham Collection,
1925.3637. Hiroshige was Wright’s
favorite Japanese artist, and
although he is best known today
for his landscapes, Wright
especially admired his bird and
flower prints, which he recom-
mended his architectural clients to
use as decoration in their homes.
This was one of many Japanese
prints purchased by Clarence
Buckingham from Frank Lloyd
Wright in 1911.

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 132 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

which resonated with his favor- with modernist architectural JOURNALISTS

ing of modernist-style architecture values: the Katsura Imperial Villa
emphasizing functional build- (see pages 12–15) and the Imperial
ings that exposed their underlying Shinto shrine at Ise (see Plate 2-5). Frank (Captain Francis)
materials and lacked extraneous Ise was the pre-eminent imperial Brinkley (Irish, 1841–1912)
decoration. While lecturing on the Shinto shrine, closely associated Brinkley studied mathematics and
subject at Tokyo Imperial University, with the emperor, so the KBS must classics at Trinity College, Dublin,
he must have come to the attention have approved Taut’s admiration then entered the Royal Military
of the Japanese government’s cultural of it. Japanese modernist architects Academy from which he was dis-
authorities, because his two highly had before him already begun to patched to the Far East. He arrived in
influential books on the subject, appreciate Katsura in their efforts Japan in 1867, ostensibly for a brief
published in 1936 and 1937, were to find native sources for modern tour but that, in fact, lasted for the
produced by a Japanese commercial architecture, and they introduced duration of his life.61 Brinkley’s keen
publisher in conjunction with the him to it. Because he was the first to interest in Japanese arts led him to
Society for International Cultural write in English about these build- befriend fellow expatriate, designer
Relations (KBS).59 In his lectures and ings, until recently he was regarded Josiah Conder (p. 128). Linguistically
books, Taut praised Japanese native as the first person to recognize their gifted, he soon resigned his military
architecture generally as a superb greatness.60 He declared Katsura the post and after serving as advisor and
contribution to world heritage, and epitome of Japanese architecture and instructor to the Japanese govern-
heaped the highest praise on two a triumph of modernism, in contrast ment, married a Japanese woman of
buildings since then hailed as mas- to the shogunal mausoleum shrines samurai birth, then became owner
terpieces of simplicity in accordance at Nikko which he reviled. and editor of the authoritative Japan
Mail newspaper (forerunner to the
Japan Times) in 1881. Brinkley’s
Plate 3-16 View of the main shoin building at the Katsura Imperial Villa, completed ca. 1663.
Photograph © peko-photo/photolibrary.jp. The building’s unpretentious appearance, clarity of prolific and wide-ranging writings
forms, and elegantly balanced proportions of the structural elements, in contrast with the irregular about Japan included an authorita-
shapes and placement of the stones that line the path, have earned this building the highest praise tive Japanese language diction-
among admirers of traditional Japanese architecture. ary, war reports for The Times of
London on the Sino-Japanese and
Russo-Japanese Wars, and several
sets of books for the Boston pub-
lisher Josiah Millet, beginning with
his editing Japan: Described and
Illustrated by the Japanese (1897–
1898; in 10–12 volumes, produced
in standard, deluxe and imperial
editions). Okakura Kakuzō (p. 136)
was one of many Japanese authori-
ties who contributed the essays for
the publication that Brinkley himself
translated into English. This set is
famous for its inclusion of over 200

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 3 E A R LY P R O M O T E R S O F “A R T I S T I C J A PA N ” 1 8 3 0 s – 1 9 5 0 s 133

Plate 3-17 Okazaki Sessei (1854–1921), Pair of

cast bronze door panels, 1890. Bronze with wood,
each 218.5 x 137 x 3.5 cm. © 2013 University
of Alberta Museums, University of Alberta,
Edmonton, Canada, Mactaggart Art Collection,
2010.21.11. These panels were first publicly and
prominently displayed at the west court entrance
to the Japanese art exhibition in the Palace of
Fine Arts at the World’s Columbian Exposition,
Chicago in 1893 (see Plate 3-1). Brinkley wrote
about them at length in volume 7 of his book,
Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature, where he
marveled at the technical tour de force of their
production.

hand-tinted albumen photographs Lafcadio Hearn (Greek, natu- when he became a Japanese citizen
and one-color collotypes of flowers ralized Japanese, 1850–1904) in 1896. While teaching at Tokyo
inserted into each volume by Ogawa Hearn was born in Greece to an Irish Imperial and Waseda Universities, he
Kazumasa, whose photos were also army surgeon father and Greek-born wrote prolifically for Western readers
featured in Josiah Conder’s book on mother. He moved to Ireland with about Japanese daily life and customs
landscape design. Millet also pub- his mother to live with his father’s in books and a series of essays, in
lished Brinkley’s eight-volume set, relatives when his father was posted magazines such as Atlantic Monthly.
Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature to the West Indies, but she soon Among his most popular books were
(1901). Its eighth volume focused on abandoned him, as did his father Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (1894),
Japanese ceramics, a subject about soon afterwards. His father’s family In Ghostly Japan (1899), Japan: An
which Brinkley, a keen collector, paid for his education in France and Attempt at Interpretation (1904), and
was considered one of the world’s Great Britain, until money ran out, Kwaidan (1904). Although neither a
experts. It included pages of detailed whereupon at age nineteen he was collector of art nor an art critic, his
illustrations of marks and seals. His sent to live with distant relatives in writings nevertheless enthralled his
many writings on art over the course Cincinnati, Ohio. There, while living foreign readers and both furthered
of his career reveal his astute under- in poverty, he began a career as a their understanding of the psyche
standing and great appreciation of newspaper reporter, which eventu- of the Japanese people and encour-
the technical virtuosity of Japanese ally took him to New Orleans, the aged them to collect Japanese arts
handicrafts, especially lacquers and West Indies, and then to Japan at and crafts for their homes. Recent
metalwork. Curiously, his name has age forty. He fell in love with the interest in this perceptive, eloquent,
faded from history, unlike that of country and settled there perma- but nearly forgotten writer has been
his contemporaries Edward Morse nently, marrying a Japanese woman stimulated by Jonathan Cott’s mov-
(p. 125), also a ceramics collector, from the Koizumi samurai clan, ing biography, Wandering Ghost
and Ernest Fenollosa (p. 134). and changing his surname to hers (1991).

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 Plate 3-18 Toyohara
Kunichika (1835–1900), The
PHILOSOPHERS
Ghost of Okiku, a Scene from
the Kabuki Play Banchō
Sarayashiki,1892, 10th month.
Ernest Fenollosa (American,
Color woodblock print 1853–1908)
triptych, 107.9 x 24.4 cm. A native of Salem, Massachusetts,
Helen Foresman Spencer Fenollosa is legendary for inspiring
Museum of Art, University of appreciation of Japanese art and
Kansas. Gift of H. Lee Turner,
design both in Japan and the West.
1968.0001.266.a,b,c . At the
He studied philosophy and divinity
time Hearn lived in Japan,
ghoulish and spine-chilling at Harvard and Cambridge
ghostly tales, of which there Universities and first went to Japan
are hundreds, were all the in 1878 to teach political economy
rage and his books and and philosophy at Tokyo Imperial
magazine essays introduced
University, through introductions
many of them to Western
from Edward Sylvester Morse (p.
readers. These were popu-
larized in paintings and 125). While there, he visited numer-
prints such as this triptych, ous ancient religious sites, collected
comprised of three single art, and together with his protégé
sheet prints aligned Okakura Kakuzō (p. 136) was among
vertically to resemble a
those who worked to found Japan’s
scroll painting (see Plate
2-54). It portrays a scene
from a famous Kabuki play
about the ghost Okiku,
about whom Hearn wrote
in his essay “In a Japanese
Garden” published in the
Atlantic Monthly magazine.62
Okiku, a servant, was
blackmailed by her master
into becoming his mistress.
To avoid that fate, she threw
herself into a well and
drowned. Thereafter, as seen
here, she emerged nightly to
haunt him.

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 3 E A R LY P R O M O T E R S O F “A R T I S T I C J A PA N ” 1 8 3 0 s – 1 9 5 0 s 135

first art training school, the Tokyo collector William Sturgis Bigelow.
School of Fine Arts (Tokyo Bijutsu Like them, Fenollosa was greatly
Gakkō), encouraging Tokyo-based attracted to Asian spiritual traditions
artists to create new styles of through his study of Japanese art
traditional painting (Nihonga). In and he also converted to Buddhism.
Boston, Fenollosa became the first In 1893, Fenollosa, together with
curator of Oriental art at the Morse, served as judge for the Plate 3-19 Anonymous Rinpa School
Museum of Fine Arts (1890–1895), pottery competition at the World’s Artist, Autumn Trees and Grasses by a
but was dismissed because of a Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Stream, second half 17th century. Left
scandal surrounding his divorce and where he also lectured on art half of a six-panel folding screen, ink,

immediate remarriage. He was an education, based on his experiences color, gold, and silver on paper, 121.9
x 312.4 cm. Metropolitan Museum of
advisor to Boston area Japanese art in Japan. Later, he advised Detroit
Art, Rogers Fund, 15.127. Fenollosa
collector Charles Goddard Weld collector Charles Lang Freer, whose sometimes misattributed fine un-
(1857–1911), to whom he sold his collection became the core of the signed Rinpa paintings such as this
personal collection, which was later Smithsonian Institution’s Freer and one to the school’s founder, Hon’ami
donated to the Museum of Fine Arts, Sackler Museums. In his survey Kōetsu (1558–1637). He included

and he also associated with other a reproduction of a section of this

book, Epochs of Chinese and Japanese
screen in his Epochs of Chinese and
fans of Japan, particularly John La Art: An Outline History of East
Japanese Art, and noted that its
Farge (p. 118), Denman Waldo Ross Asiatic Design, whose text he “aesthetic purity and loftiness of both
(p. 120), Arthur Wesley Dow (p. completed in 1906 and which was line and color come out in perfect
121), Percival Lowell (p. 126), and published posthumously by his wife combination.”63

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 136 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

in 1912,64 he outlined his ideas on whom the metaphysical concepts was engaged as a curator for the
the spiritual qualities and design expounded upon by Fenollosa served Imperial Household Museum
principles of Japanese art. There, as important catalysts for his own and wrote major, pioneering
he mentioned the term nōtan, the writings throughout his career. works as a member of the first
dark–light principle about which his generation of modern Japanese
disciple Dow had previously written. Okakura Kakuzō (also called art historians. In his views of
He also praised Japanese painters of Tenshin), Japanese, 1863–1913) the outside world he was both
the Rinpa School above all others, Arguably the most widely influential an ultranationalist and an
calling them “the greatest painters of and contentious Japanese intellectual internationalist.67
tree and flower forms the world has of his day, Okakura was, in the words Okakura was born and raised in
ever seen.”65 Rinpa artists, he noted, of John Clark, Yokohama, with its large foreign
were also highly esteemed among interested both in art and population, where he received both a
élite Japanese collectors, who, like theories of the state. He served Western missionary and traditional
him, appreciated their abstracted, as government bureaucrat, but Japanese temple-schooled educa-
simplified design sensibility and bold was also a poet and writer in tion. He later studied philosophy
application of color, celebrated as both Japanese and English. He under Ernest Fenollosa (p. 134) at
being devoid of foreign influences. worked as an art educationalist, Tokyo Imperial University. Through
His commentary echoed and an art-world administrator, and Fenollosa, Okakura met the “Boston
expanded upon writings on Rinpa an art movement ideologist. He Orientalists” William Sturgis
artists by Louis Gonse (p. 142),
whose book he reviewed at length,
Plate 3-20 Takamura Kōun (1852–1934), One of a pair of ranma (transom) panels from the Phoenix
with specific critique of Gonse’s
Hall (Hōōden) at the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. Wood with polychrome, 95 x 280
discussion of Rinpa.66 Although x 20 cm. Art Institute of Chicago. Gift of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Conservation made
erroneous and outdated even at the possible by an anonymous donor, Roger L. Weston, Richard and Heather Black, Patricia Welch Bro,
time of its publication, Fenollosa’s Mary S. Lawton, John K. Notz, Jr, Richard and Janet Horwood, Charles Haffner III, Mrs Marilynn B.
Epochs has often been reprinted. Alsdorf, and Walter and Karen Alexander, 2009.631. Okakura Kakuzō served as a member of Japan’s
committee that selected objects for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, in his
Other unpublished notes by
role as director of the art section at the Tokyo Imperial Museum. This enabled him to arrange for
Fenollosa on translations of Japanese
art by Takamura Kōun and other members of his school’s faculty to be well represented there and
Nō plays and Chinese poetry were for them to create the interior room decorations for the Hōōden, the Japanese national building
published posthumously, edited by that was erected at the fair. This recently restored transom panel is one of the few treasures from
modernist writer Ezra Pound, for this building to have survived.

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 3 E A R LY P R O M O T E R S O F “A R T I S T I C J A PA N ” 1 8 3 0 s – 1 9 5 0 s 137

Bigelow, Henry Adams, and John La superiority over the West.68 In 1904,
Farge (p. 118), with whom he devel- he returned to the United States and
oped a close friendship and obtained became curator of Oriental Art at
entry into the world of New York the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
and Bostonian high society when At this time, he became close to
he visited for the first time in 1886. collector Isabella Stewart Gardner
Okakura worked on projects with and began holding tea ceremonies
Fenollosa in conjunction with the as a way of introducing Westerners
political élite of Japan who sought to the essence of Japanese culture.
to modernize their nation through His subsequent, and most successful
the infusion of Western-influenced publication, The Book of Tea (1906),
institutional structures. These was dedicated to his friend La Farge.
included surveys of historic temples It presented a more positive and
and shrines and the co-founding overarching assessment of Japanese Plate 3-21 Garden path stepping stones at the
of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, aesthetics that presented participa- Sumiya, Kyoto, late 17th–18th century. In his

that he directed from 1890 until his book Zen and Japanese Culture, D. T. Suzuki
tion in the tea ceremony as a means
endeavored to credit Zen for inspiring the
ouster in 1896 (when he established to impart beauty and profound
well-known Japanese penchant for asymmet-
an alternative school with funding meaning to one’s life. Right at its rical balance, which he illustrated with an
from Bigelow). In 1901, Okakura beginning, he described “teaism” example of stepping stones similar to those in
made his first trip to India, where he as a cult founded on the adora- this photograph. He likened the preference for
lodged in Calcutta with the family of tion of the beautiful among the imperfection and asymmetry to “the Zen way

famed Indian writer Rabindranath of looking at individual things as perfect in

sordid facts of everyday exis-
themselves and at the same time embodying
Tagore (1861–1941), who became his tence. It inculcates purity and
the nature of totality which belongs to the
good friend. There, Okakura wrote harmony, the mystery of mutual One.”70
his first English language book, The charity, the romanticism of the
Ideals of the East (1903), in which he social order. It is essentially a
praised Japanese cultural heritage as worship of the Imperfect, as it is D. T. (Daisetsu Teitaro) Suzuki
a culmination of and naturalization a tender attempt to accomplish (Japanese, 1870–1966)
of Indian spirituality (as transmit- something possible in this impos- A seminal and controversial figure,
ted to Japan through Buddhism), sible thing we know as life.69 Suzuki has profoundly influenced
and Chinese humanism, which he He described tea as “the cup of perceptions of Zen and its influ-
saw as a synthesis of the Chinese humanity” and its tea room as “the ence on Japanese arts and culture
philosophies of Confucianism and Abode of Vacancy or the Abode of in the West. He possessed a broad
Daoism. Japan’s role on the global the Unsymmetrical,” a mere cottage intellectual curiosity, impeccable
scene, he believed, was to transmit constructed of wood and bamboo. academic training, and stellar lin-
these Oriental ideals to the West, an Obviously this was not a guide to the guistic competency in several Asian
idea he expressed with the phrase formal preparation of tea but rumi- and European languages, including
“Asia is one,” the opening line of this nation on how to make sense of its English. He first studied at Tokyo
book. His writings here and else- aesthetic world. Because of the great Imperial University, and there began
where indicated that he believed not response to his book, the chanoyu training under the esteemed and
only in a binary opposition between tea ceremony gained currency as the cosmopolitan Zen master Sōen
Asia and the West but also in Japan’s quintessential Japanese aesthetic. Shaku (1860–1919) of Engakuji in

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 138 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

Kamakura. Through him, Suzuki met

Paul Carus (1852–1919), philoso-
pher of comparative religions, while
attending the World’s Parliament of
Religions in Chicago in 1893, and
subsequently lived with Carus in
Illinois for several years from 1905,
working on translations of Asia
religious texts. In 1911, he married
Beatrice Lane, an American fol-
lower of Theosophy, who encouraged
his investigations into the nature
of divinity and spiritual wisdom.
He became a professor of Buddhist
philosophy, first at Gakushūin in
Tokyo and from 1919 in Kyoto at
Ōtani University. During the 1930s,
influenced by prevailing discourses
that sought to promote the unique-
Plate 3-22 Karatsu ware (Yumino kiln) large kneading bowl, 18th century. Glazed stoneware, height
ness of the Japanese people, his 18.5 cm, diameter of mouth 55.9 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.
lectures and essays for both foreign Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 33-1587. Photo: Joshua Ferdinand. This type of bowl, with
and native audiences described Zen its naive, rustic beauty and rough and vigorous painting of a simple pine tree over a clay surface
as the underlying basis for Japan’s covered with white slip, was one of the types of folk ceramics much admired by Yanagi Sōetsu.

love of nature, its aesthetics and Yanagi personally selected this piece for the Nelson-Atkins Museum’s collection at the request of
his friend Langdon Warner (p. 144), the museum’s first advisor for Asian art.
art forms, including haiku poetry,
architecture and gardens, the tea cer-
emony of chanoyu, and swordsman- 1957, where his students included these lectures and writings Suzuki
ship. The first of his writings in this many leading intellectuals. He also initiated a boom in interest in Zen in
vein was published by the Society authored numerous popular and America that has continued unabat-
for Intercultural Relations (KBS) scholarly volumes in English about ed ever since.73
that also published works by Bruno the Zen school, Buddhism and Asian
Taut (p. 130), Harada Jirō (p. 147), spirituality during this time. His best Yanagi Sōetsu (Japanese,
and Tsuda Noritake (p. 148) around known work of this period, Zen and 1889–1961)
the same time. In 1938, his talks and Japanese Culture (1959), revised and An upper-class Tokyo-born phi-
writing were compiled into a book, expanded his 1938 volume on the losopher of religions, Yanagi was
Zen Buddhism and Its Influence on subject.71 Although his viewpoint the person who first identified and
Japanese Culture. Suzuki returned elevates certain aesthetics at the described arts and crafts created by
to the USA in 1949 and remained expense of other, equally characteris- and for the common people as min-
there for ten years, guest lecturing tic ones, for example overemphasiz- gei (page 46). He was much inspired
at various universities and teach- ing the importance of the chanoyu by the Socialist-influenced philoso-
ing in the philosophy department at tea ceremony aesthetics of wabi and phy of the British Arts and Crafts
Columbia University from 1952 to sabi, it remains a classic.72 Through Movement, whose followers deplored

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 3 E A R LY P R O M O T E R S O F “A R T I S T I C J A PA N ” 1 8 3 0 s – 1 9 5 0 s 139

industrialized mass-produced crafts Jarves was an inveterate traveler

and believed that the aesthetic
ART HISTORIANS who lived for a time in Hawaii and
expression of a culture lay not in
AND ART the South Seas, where he dabbled in
products created for élites by famous
CRITICS newspaper publishing before travel-
artists but in the anonymous prod- ing to Europe in 1851 and settling
ucts of the common people. British James Jackson Jarves permanently in Florence, Italy, soon
potter Bernard Leach (1887–1979), a (American, 1818–1888) afterwards. There, as a self-taught
leader of the British movement, was A cultured and prolific art critic, amateur, he began a career as a
a close friend. Leach was responsible Jarves published one of the earliest writer about art for the American
for introducing Western readers to books about Japanese art, A Glimpse public. By the time he penned his
Yanagi’s writings.74 Yanagi believed at the Art of Japan (1876), despite book on Japanese art, he was a
that mingei was a defining element having never visited the country. It respected authority as well as a seri-
of Japanese civilization that distin- was such an influential volume that ous collector of Old Master drawings
guished Japan’s modern cultural as late as 1933 a reviewer for the New and Italian paintings, which inspired
identity from that of the Asian main- England Quarterly gave it a glowing Jarves to punctuate his book with
land and of the West, an idea which assessment.77 A native of Boston, comparisons between the Japanese
fit the fervent nationalistic sentiment and Europeans. He included mainly
of his era.75 In 1931, Yanagi founded Plate 3-23 Dangling hairpin (Bira kanzashi), prints and book illustrations by the
Edo period (1615–1868). The hairpin has a
the Japanese Folk Craft Association ukiyoe artist Katsushika Hokusai,
gold flower with a coral center and other
and began promoting his ideas in then all the rage in Europe. But in
silver and coral flowers, long dangling
the magazine Kōgei (“Crafts,” which blossoms and small coral pale balls, and many respects, he demonstrated a
merged with the journal Mingei in a plum-shaped pendant. Helen Foresman high level of perceptiveness about
1952). In 1935, he began organiz- Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Japanese culture and its arts, com-
ing exhibitions of folk crafts in a William Bridges Thayer Memorial, 1928.0321. menting on the importance of nature
James Jackson Jarves admired finely wrought
museum he founded in Tokyo, the and its dominance in poetic imagery,
functional objects such as this.
Japan Folk Crafts Museum (Tokyo stating “no people more thoroughly
Mingeikan). For this museum, understand the respective offices of
he collected not only crafts made Art and Nature, and where to draw
in Japan but also those made in the boundary between them.”78 He
Korea, which Japan then occupied. also lavishly praised Japanese crafts-
The art dealer Yamanaka Sadajirō men, noting that “the workman was
(1865–1936) helped spread apprecia- a thorough worker and master of his
tion for mingei among collectors in particular art, content with nothing
the West by selling examples of these short of absolute technical perfec-
arts in his galleries. Langdon Warner tion, aesthetic and material, in every
(p. 144), a great admirer, quoted a object he undertook, whether it was
favorite saying of Yanagi in several cheap or valuable.”79 Not surprisingly,
of his publications: “If the repetition he especially admired detail-oriented
of a machine is the death of all art, and technically challenging arts such
the manual repetition by a craftsman as Satsuma ceramics, bronzes, lac-
is the very mother of skill and skill quers, and ivories, all popular export
is the mother of beauty.”76 products readily available in Europe.

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 140 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

Elsewhere he commented on the

propensity of the Japanese to create
wonderfully wrought useful objects,
declaring “the mechanical perfection
of Japanese carpentry, metal work,
papers, leather, in short whatever
they manufacture, from a mammoth
bell down to a box-hinge or hairpin
(Plate 3-23), is quite as conspicuous
to the eye of a mechanic as are the
aesthetic features of objects of art to
an artist’s senses.”80

Plate 3-24 Félix Hilaire Buhot, artist (French, Philippe Burty (French,
1847–1898); Henri Charles Guérard, etcher
1830–1890)
(French, 1846–1897), Masque en Bois, from the
Burty was an early art critic who
series Japonisme: Dix Eaux-Fortes (Japonisme:
Ten Etchings), 1883. Etching on yellow advocated appreciation of
handmade Chinese paper with silver and Impressionist artists and other new
gold leaf, sheet/paper 32.8 x 27.7 cm. Helen art trends, as well as a writer and
Foresman Spencer Museum of Art, University collector of Japanese arts. His
of Kansas, 1989.0015.02. Between 1874 and Plate 3-25 Amida Buddha, originally from
enormous and diverse collection of
1885 Burty hired print maker Félix Hilaire Banryūji, Meguro District, Tokyo, mid-18th
century. Cast bronze, height 440 cm. Musée Japanese art (sold after his death)
Buhot to create a portfolio of ten prints, later
published commercially, featuring examples Cernuschi, Paris. Photo © Philippe Ladet/ included woodblock prints, sword
from the various categories of Japanese arts Musée Cernuschi/Roger-Viollet/The Image guards, bronze sculptures, ceramics,
he collected. This sheet depicts a Japanese Works. This statue was one of the most lacquers, theatrical masks (Plate
demon mask (ko-besihimi type) for the Nō famous objects Henri Cernuschi brought
3-24), inrō, and textiles. His friends
theater. The inscription in black ink to the left back to Paris from Japan. The public first
and associates in the art world
of the mask records the name of the mask saw it when he lent his collection to an
exhibition at the Palais de L’Industrie in included the art dealer Siegfred Bing
maker (Deme Yūkan, d. 1652), probably copied
from the artist’s inscription carved into the 1873–4. Afterwards, it held a prominent (p. 122), from whom he acquired
back of the mask. Burty intended the series place in his Parisian mansion that, upon some of his art and for whose journal
to be distributed to a broad audience so as his death in 1896, was turned into a public he contributed essays on ceramics
81
to help popularize Japanese arts. The rare museum. Theodore Duret (p. 141) made it
and pottery, and artists Edouard
printing of this particular set was done on even more famous with inclusion of it in
Manet (1832–1883), John La Farge
cheap, imported, and previously used Chinese his book, Voyage en Asie (1874), and his
evocative comments that “his features (p. 118), and James McNeill Whistler,
paper. The red characters, printed in China, and
appearing upside down in this composition, convey absolute calm, the absence of the latter also patronized by Marcus
impart an exotic Oriental aura to the image. passion and of desire, and the stamp of this Huish (p. 123). So enthralled was
type of ecstasy particular to Buddha, who, he with all things Japanese that he
detached from everything and freed from
helped found the secret Jing-Lar
life, has achieved the dissolution of his own
Society in Sèvres, France (home of
feelings, even of his personality; that is to
say, all that Buddhist metaphysicians and the Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory),
theologians could conceive or dream, the in 1866–7. This small group of
artist has here realized in bronze.”82 like-minded artists and writers

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Plate 3-26 (left) Unidentified Artist of the Chōshū School, Sword guard
(tsuba) with openwork design of insects and autumn grasses, 18th century.
Iron, diameter 7.1 cm. The Walters Art Museum, 51.403. Sword guards
were among the most popular Japanese decorative arts collected in
France in the late nineteenth century and Louis Gonse (p. 142) featured
a number of them in his book. This one, with its abstracted, asym-
metrical design of imagery from the natural world exemplifies the type
that was most in vogue in Gonse’s day.

Plate 3-27 (right) Ogawa Ritsuō (Haritsu; 1663–1747), Pair of Niō Guardians.
Carved and stained softwood with paint-lacquer decoration to the skirts,
height of Misshaku (right) 24.7 cm, height of Naraen (left) 24.6 cm. Collection
of Sydney L. Moss, Ltd. In his book Japanese Art, Sadakichi Hartmann (p. 142)
praised Ritsuō’s sculpture and described him as “the most skillful lacquerer
the world has ever known.”83 His comments relied on an article, “Ritsuō and
His School,” by British collector Ernest Hart, that had appeared in Artistic Japan.
There, Hart illustrated these Niō and commended them for preserving the
grandeur and strength of the celebrated originals they copied.”84

gathered to celebrate Japanese Japanese aesthetics and design Théodore Duret (French,
culture by dressing in kimono and characteristics (asymmetry, color 1838–1927)
eating Japanese food with chopsticks. sensibility, facility in drawing) but Duret was a political journalist and
Burty’s interest in Japanese arts also the manners and customs of an important art critic, the first to
related to his desire to see them used the Japanese people, which he, like promote Impressionism, and who
as models for the decorative artists many others of his time, considered later in life coined the term avant
of his country, whose works he inseparable from understanding the garde. His interest in Japan was
considered lackluster. He admired culture’s art forms. He is perhaps aroused during a three-month stay
Japanese artists’ technical virtuosity best known for coining the widely in 1871, part of a grand tour of Asia
and incorporation of themes from used French term Japonisme, in an that he undertook together with his
nature, which he linked to Western article for the journal La Renaissance friend, the collector Henri (Enrico)
aesthetics associated with romanti- Littéraire et Artistique in 1872, which Cernuschi (1821–1896), an Italian
cism. His writings in various he defined as “a new field of study— émigré banker who resided in Paris.
journals highlighted not only artistic, historic, and ethnographic.”85 Duret became especially smitten

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with Japanese prints, which he col- netsuke carvings (judging from the
lected and gave to the Bibliothèque examples he included in his book,
Nationale in Paris in 1900. His he appears to have been partial to
1882 book on Katushika Hokusai animals), sword guards (see Plate
helped propel that artist’s fame in 3-26), masks, and ceramics. In L’Art
Europe.86 He was also acquainted Japonais, he extolled highest praise
with Siegfred Bing (p. 122), for upon lacquers, which he described
whose journal, Artistic Japan, he as “the glory of Japan.” Gonse also
contributed articles about engraving contributed to his friend Bing’s
on Japanese prints and the decora- journal, Artistic Japan, where, for
tive artistry of Japanese combs, the first issue (1888), he famously
noting that the Japanese were the described the Japanese as “the
first to transform the comb into foremost decorators in the world”
an ornamental object. Duret also in his essay “Génie des Japonais
helped to stimulate Western interest dans le Décor” (The genius of the
in Buddhism, its material culture, Japanese in décor). For number 23
and in Cernuschi’s vast collection of that journal (1890), he excerpted
of Buddhist art in his 1874 book, passages from his book in an
Voyage en Asie87 (see Plate 3-25). article about the design genius of
the Rinpa School painter Ogata
Louis Gonse (French, Kōrin (1658–1716), the first in the
1846–1921) West to do so.89 The Rinpa School of tanka.92 Hartmann was born
Gonse was a well respected art and Kōrin, in particular, were later in Nagasaki, Japan, to a Japanese
critic whose friends included highly praised by Ernest Fenollosa mother and a German businessman
Siegfred Bing (p. 122), collector (p. 134), as noted above.90 father, but after his mother died in
Henri Cernuschi, Philippe Burty childbirth he was sent him to live
(p. 140), Theodore Duret (p. 141), Sadakichi Hartmann with relatives in Hamburg, Germany.
and other Japanese art enthusi- (Japanese/German/American, Upon remarriage, his father enrolled
asts. Gonse holds the distinction 1867–1944) him in military school, but he
of being the first foreigner to Hartmann was an art critic who rebelled, was disinherited, and at
author a major historical survey wrote about a wide range of visual, age fourteen was sent to America to
in a Western language on the art literary, and dramatic art forms, live with relatives in Philadelphia.
of Japan, L’Art Japonais, which was including American and Japanese There he worked in menial jobs
originally published in French in art, photography, and the aesthet- by day and voraciously studied art
1883 and translated into English in ics of Japanese-style poetry and Nō at night. Hartmann furthered his
1891.88 It featured many works from drama. He is best known today as a studies through self-financed sum-
Cernuschi’s collection, including pioneer of photography criticism.91 mer trips to Europe. Ambitious,
the Buddha statue that Duret had Poet Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) inquisitive, brazen, and passionate,
praised in his book Voyage en Asie credited him as the first to write in he befriended the elderly poet Walt
(Plate 3-25), and objects from Bing’s English using the Japanese short Whitman (1819–1892), for whom
and Burty’s collections, as well three-line poetic form of haiku he occasionally translated German
as from his own, which included (haikai) and the longer verse form correspondence, and who inspired

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Hartmann’s writings on Japanese art

bear consideration because he was
the first writer to address the influ-
ence of Japanese art and design on
American artists in his two-volume
survey book (1902),94 where he com-
mented on Japanese influence on art-
ists such as Arthur Wesley Dow (p.
121). Hartmann only wrote one book
specifically on Japanese art (1903),95
that he described as a publication
for the layman, with a bibliography
that indicated his familiarity with all
the major Western writers on both
Japanese art and culture, whom he
often paraphrased (see Plate 3-27),
and with chapters that surveyed the
usual types of arts, arranged loosely
within an overly simplified historical
framework emphasizing the art of
his own time.
Plate 3-28 View of Matsushima. Photograph © Greir11/Dreamstime.com. As a poet,
Laurence Binyon is most famous for his war poem, “For the Fallen,” written in 1914. But
Laurence Binyon (British,
his poems about some of Japan’s most sacred historic sites—Mt Kōya, Matsushima,
1869–1943)
Hakone, and Miyajima—written following his 1929 trip to Japan are admired for the
contemplative imagery that reveals his deep love and knowledge of Japanese culture. Binyon was a prolific poet, play-
Scholarly in tone, they have been described as “early examples of a sober receptiveness wright, and art historian with
to Japanese culture.”96 The first stanza of Binyon’s poem “Matsushima” is quoted below.97 expertise in British, Persian, and
O paradise of waters and of isles that gleam, Japanese pictorial arts. He worked at
Dark pines on scarps that flame white in a mirrored sky,
the British Museum for the duration
A hundred isles that change like a dissolving dream
of his career, from 1893 to 1933, first
From shape to shape for them that with the wind glide by!
as an assistant in the Departments
him to pursue a career in the arts. “[o]ne of the strangest and most of Printed Books, and Prints and
Because of his Japanese heritage and original men of letters of the day…. Drawings, and from 1913 as the
its popularity in the art world of He was born in the land of wistar- first Keeper of the new Department
his day, Hartmann was drawn to all ias and chrysanthemums, and he of Oriental Prints and Drawings.
things Japanese. His Asian appear- sees life with that Japanese anarchy That appointment followed publi-
ance gave him an air of authority of perspective. His gifts are abun- cation, in 1908, of a broad survey
about what was then called Oriental dant and multiform, and his genius book on the history of East Asian
art, despite his upbringing entirely for writing has many modes and painting which helped elevate his
in the West. In an article in the Paris moods. He is lyric, naive and mystic, status to the foremost authority
Herald (September 1906), writer brutally realistic, dramatic at turns in the West on Japanese pictorial
Vance Thompson described him as and for all that eminently oriental.”93 arts.98 In the book, he echoed the

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praises of Ernest Fenollosa (p. 134) that had engaged his interest over position as head of archaeological
and others that the paintings of the the course of his career, including expeditions in China and Inner Asia,
Rinpa School should be considered the influence of Zen on East Asian he organized, in 1910, an exhibition
as the “supreme achievements of arts and ukiyoe. He made references on Japanese stencils from the col-
pictorial design.”99 Binyon’s dual to the writings of Okakura Kakuzō lection of William Sturgis Bigelow,
vocations, as both a talented poet (p. 136) about the shared heritage of noting in the catalogue introduction,
and respected art historian, enabled Asian art, and Arthur Waley’s recent published in the museum’s Bulletin,
him to influence individuals with and now classic translation of The that typically “the processes have
varied interests in Japan, includ- Tale of Genji. interested this Museum much less
ing Arthur Waley (1889–1966), the than results, and we have seldom
eminent scholar and translator of Langdon Warner (American, gone into the technique of the arts
Chinese and Japanese literature who 1881–1955) of which we possess examples.”102
was his assistant at the museum, and An art historian and curator, This fascination with the process of
the poet Ezra Pound. Fairly early in Warner learned to appreciate art creation in relation to stencils
his career, in 1911, he contributed a Japanese art and design from an was probably derived from acquain-
volume to publisher John Murray’s impressive group of mentors, all tance with the highly influential art
extensive Wisdom of the East Series, members of the first generation of educator Arthur Wesley Dow (p.
where in language both poetic and scholars, collectors, and curators of 121), an outspoken advocate of their
erudite he endeavored to explain to Japanese art at the Museum of Fine usefulness as teaching tools. For
Westerners motivations of Chinese Arts Boston: Denman Wald Ross much of his later career, he worked
and Japanese painters, with special (p. 120), Okakura Kakuzō (p. 136), at Harvard as curator and lecturer,
focus on the significance of nature.100 and Yanagi Sōetsu (p. 138). From in the same department as Denman
His text explored both the spiritual Okakura, Warner learned about the Ross, where he taught the first
basis for Far Eastern painting as well chanoyu tea ceremony and its aes- ever course on Oriental art at any
as its formalist design characteristics, thetics. From Ross and, through him American university. In addition, he
describing the painters’ emphasis on indirectly, from Ernest Fenollosa served as director of the Philadelphia
light and shade with Fenollosa and (p. 134), he acquired a fondness for Museum of Art and advised the
Dow’s term nōtan, which he equated Japanese design and craftsmanship. Cleveland Museum of Art and the
on page 86 of his book with the From Yanagi, Warner developed an Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art on
Western term “chiaroscuro.” Binyon interest in mingei. Although his tem- Asian acquisitions. He also coordi-
made only one trip to Japan, in 1929 perament prevented him from pur- nated several major loan exhibitions
(see Plate 3-28), to present a series of suing an advanced degree, Warner of treasures from Japan, both before
lectures at Tokyo Imperial University eventually became one of the most and after World War II, in coopera-
in which he compared Western and influential Asian art historians in the tion with Japanese officials, including
Japanese art and cultural traditions. United States. After graduating from Tsuda Noritake (p. 148), for the Arts
In 1933–4, he delivered a series of six Harvard in 1903, he came under of the Pacific Basin exhibition in
lectures at Harvard University in its the tutelage of Okakura, who sent San Francisco in 1939. His great-
Charles Eliot Norton Lecture series him off to Japan for training before est love was for Japanese Buddhist
that were subsequently published in allowing him to work as his assistant sculpture, about which he published
a volume he dedicated to Langdon at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. several volumes in the pre-war
Warner (p. 144).101 In it, he addressed Before he parted from the museum period, but he is best remembered
some of the major themes and topics in 1913 for a more glamorous for his small but thoughtful late

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Plate 3-29 Nō or Kyōgen

theater under robe
(noshime) with blue and
white plaid pattern, first
half 19th century. Blue
and white kasuri (ikat)
weave silk, 149.9 x 154.9
cm. The Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art. Purchase:
William Rockhill Nelson
Trust, 32–142/15. Photo:
Tiffany Matson. Warner
purchased 157 magni-
ficent examples of
textiles from Kyoto for
the Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art, his first
acquisitions for the
museum. This deceptively
simple and rare design
creates a striking
presence on stage.

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Plate 3-30 Chanoyu tea house in the garden of the Tokyo National Museum. Photo: remarked that “an individual genius,
Patricia J. Graham, May 2012. This tea house was designed by tea master Kobori Enshū however his accomplishment may
(1579–1647) for his private residence in Kyoto. After being relocated several times, it
astonish and delight us, will always
came into the collection of the Tokyo National Museum in 1963. The rustic appearance
express himself and will therefore
of the structure, with its plain wood surfaces and thatch roof, epitomizes the under-
stated and humble aesthetics of chanoyu praised by Harada Jirō. necessarily be of less significance
than an artist who expresses us all.”106
work, The Enduring Art of Japan that cramp him,”104 and in a chapter These sorts of impassioned remarks
(1952), in which he expressed the on Japan’s native religion of Shinto endeared him to his students, and
aesthetic and cultural values that he as “nurse of the arts,” he mused his many friends in Japan, where he
so admired in the Japanese people.103 that “possession of the mysteries remains a much beloved figure for
There, he wrote of the many ways of a craft means nothing less than whom four memorials were erected
attentiveness to nature nurtured the a power over nature gods and it posthumously in recognition of his
artist. In a chapter on Buddhism, he creates a priest out of the man who efforts to save historic monuments
wrote “nature suggests the materials controls it.”105 Influenced by Yanagi and arts from bombings during
used by the artist and the limitations in his comments about folk art, he World War II.107

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Harada Jirō (Japanese, exhibition of Japanese art treasures describing the number one character
1878–1963) that took place at the Museum of of the Japanese people as their spirit
Harada worked for many years at Fine Arts Boston in 1936. The tone of loyalty and patriotism110 and that
the Imperial Household Agency, the of his writing is learned and engag- their “taste for art and refinement
administrative body to the Tokyo ing but also off-putting because of [was] side by side with their admira-
Imperial Museum (now the Tokyo its digression into imperialist and tion for military prowess.”111 Harada’s
National Museum). He authored nationalist rhetoric, for example, lectures and his writings all focused
numerous books about traditional on sophisticated pre-modern
Japanese art and aesthetics in English Plate 3-31 Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion) and Japanese arts associated with the
garden, Rokuonji, Kyoto National Treasure.
between 1928 and 1954, on topics élites of society, most of which
Photograph © Denimjuls/Dreamstime.
as varied as Japanese landscape had been designated as National
com. Originally built in the 1390s as the
gardening (which he tied to Japanese private retreat of a wealthy and powerful
Treasures or Important Cultural
concepts of spirituality), architecture, warrior ruler, it was turned into a Properties by the Japanese govern-
including the Shugakuin and Katsura Buddhist memorial temple to him after ment. These arts had never before
Imperial Villas, and the eighth his death. It was destroyed by arson in been displayed in the West and he
1950 and meticulously reconstructed
century Shōsōin Imperial Treasure made a point of emphasizing to his
in 1964. The Kinkakuji pavilion and its
House at Tōdaiji, Nara, as well as audiences that there was so much
garden, still a top tourist destination in
masks, textiles, woodblock printing, Kyoto today, were among the famous
more to appreciate about Japanese
and incense boxes.108 Although many temple sites featured in Tsuda Noritake’s art than the ukiyoe prints that were
details of his life remain unknown, Handbook of Japanese Art. then widely collected in the West.
he obviously had a great command
of English, probably having learned
it as a child, as did D. T. Suzuki
(p. 137), who was his contemporary
and whose views on the uniqueness
of Japanese aesthetics seem similar to
those Harada expressed in his books,
especially his A Glimpse of Japanese
Ideals (1937).109 That book compiled
some of the lectures he presented at
various universities in the United
States over the course of thirteen
months beginning in the autumn
of 1935. His trip and the book that
resulted were sponsored by the
Society for Intercultural Relations,
which arranged for him to have a
visiting lectureship at the University
of Oregon for fall and winter terms
and to lecture at other universities on
the Pacific West Coast and in Boston
in the spring, to help promote the

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He stressed the aesthetics of shibumi the 1930s, in addition to writing Kyoto, Nara, and Tokyo, and the
(otherwise known as shibui), sabi, Handbook of Japanese Art, an author- most esteemed ancient temples and
and wabi, which had emerged in itative survey book on Japanese art shrines of those cities and else-
tandem with the chanoyu tea that remains in print to this day,115 where. Despite its aim, Tsuda’s tone
ceremony, expanding upon the Tsuda coordinated two US exhibi- throughout was never imperious but
writings of Okakura (p. 136). Harada tions of treasures from Japan for the was passionate and engaging, even
described chanoyu as “an institution Society, one in Boston in 1936 and when describing the fine craftsman-
founded on the adoration of the the other in San Francisco in 1939, ship of the arts, which he must have
beautiful in the midst of the sordid the latter together with organizer included to showcase the creative
facts of everyday life”112 and implied, Langdon Warner (p. 144), whom he genius of Japanese artists’ techni-
rather simplistically, that its five had met in Japan in 1918. His above- cal skills. The book also featured a
guiding principles—sincerity, mentioned book, first published in section on ukiyoe prints, no doubt
harmony, respect, cleanliness, and 1935, has the distinction of being because of their popularity with
tranquility113—had impacted various the first survey of Japanese art, foreign audiences. The book, alas,
facets of Japanese culture and art, gardens and architecture in English included some obvious factual errors
including its architecture, landscape by a Japanese author. It presents an known as such even in his own
gardening, calligraphy, painting, official Japanese perspective, having time, errors derived from writings
applied arts, interior decoration, been published in Japan by a com- by Ernest Fenollosa (p. 134), whom
and etiquette114 and represented the mercial Japanese publisher working Tsuda greatly admired.
driving force of Japanese aesthetics. in close cooperation with the Society
for International Cultural Relations THE LEGACY
Tsuda Noritake (Japanese, for whom Tsuda was then employed.
OF THE EARLY
1883–ca. 1961) Its publication was timed to pre-
Tsuda was an enigmatic and prolific pare the public for the 1936 Boston
WRITERS
pre-war scholar who did graduate exhibition of Japanese treasures
studies at Tokyo Imperial University that Tsuda helped to coordinate. Despite much new scholarship on
in religion and Asian art. He was The book situated within historic, Japanese design in recent decades,
employed in succession from the religious, and cultural contexts the older writings have not been entirely
1910s through the 1930s by the buildings, gardens, and arts created forgotten. The pre-eminence of
Tokyo Imperial Museum, the by the historical élites of society and modern and contemporary Japanese
Metropolitan Museum of Art in artists of prestigious lineages that designers, and the expansion of
New York, the Imperial Japanese the government was promoting to scholarly studies of Japanese art
Railways, and the Society for the world as its cultural patrimony, history and visual culture, Japon-
Intercultural Relations. His many many having been recently designat- isme, Japanese architectural history,
publications reveal an enthusiasm ed as National Treasures (see Plate and global design history, have all
for cultural and ethnic national- 3-31). These were described in the contributed to a wider appreciation
ism, evident in varied degrees in book’s second part, a guide to major for Japanese design. Understanding
the art writings of other Japanese at temples and museums. Collections has been considerably facilitated
that time: Okakura (p. 136), Yanagi highlighted included those of the by increased availability of many
(p. 138), and Harada (p. 147). While Imperial Household (the emperor’s pre-war volumes on Japanese arts
in the employ of the Society for personal collection), the three great and design that publishers have
International Cultural Relations in “Imperial” national museums in been reprinting since the 1960s.

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Reprints in modest or deluxe

facsimile editions include books by
most, but not all, of the early writers
discussed in this chapter: Alcock,
Binyon, Brinkley, Conder, Dow,
Plate 3-32 Cover of “The Grammar of Japanese Ornament,” by George Ashdown
Dresser, Duret, Fenollosa, Harada,
Audsley, T. W. Cutler, and Charles Newton (New York: Arch Cape Press, 1989).
This reprint excerpted and compiled into a single volume the sumptuously
Hearn, Huish, Jarves, Lowell, Morse,
illustrated texts by George Ashdown Audsley (The Ornamental Arts of Japan, Okakura, Ross, Siebold, Suzuki,
1882) and Thomas W. Cutler (A Grammar of Japanese Ornament and Design, Tsuda, Warner, and Yanagi. These
1880). Also included in the reprint are sections of a French pattern book, reprints cater mainly to two mar-
Estoffes de Soie du Japan (originally published ca.1900 by Henri Ernst). kets—readers interested in the
history of Japanese studies in the
West and art and design educators/
practitioners. Tuttle Publications
has reprinted many books that fit
the former category and Dover
Publications the latter. Reprints of
old books aimed at designers include
some rare early volumes on nar-
row subjects, including The Book
of Delightful and Strange Designs:
Being One Hundred Fac-Simile
Illustrations of the Art of the Japanese
Stencil-Cutter, originally published
in London in 1892.116 It illustrated
Japanese stencils from the collec-
tion of the book’s author, British
publisher Andrew Tuer (1838–1900).
That book had helped spread interest
in stencils as an art form, and was
produced simultaneously in English,
French, and German editions.

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 150 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

GLOSSARY

basara—outlandish elegance
bijutsu—fine arts
bijutsu kōgei—art craft
bonsai—“tray plants,” the art of prun-
ing plants for display in small pots
or trays
busshi—sculptors who carved wooden
Buddhist icons
chanoyu—the tea ceremony for pow-
dered tea
chōkoku—the modern Japanese word
for sculpture
chōzubachi—a stone water basin,
originally found outside temples kabuki—popular theater that origi-
gei—artistic skill
and shrines, now ubiquitous in nated in the Edo period
Japanese gardens, used for cleansing go—a Chinese board game of strategy,
(purifying) hands and mouths introduced to Japan along with kabuku—outlandish elegance
Confucian values kaiga—the modern Japanese language
Confucianism—an ancient Chinese
philosophy that stresses ethical gorintō—five element pagoda word for painting
values of respect for authority but hade—bright and exuberant beauty kami—Shinto deities
also asserted that rulers needed haikai—short form, linked-verse karei—sumptuous elegance
to govern with wisdom and poetry of three lines, each consist- karesansui—a dry landscape garden,
compassion ing of 5, 7, and 5 syllables (some- featuring sand or gravel in place of
Daoism (Taoism)—(“the way” or times referred to as haiku) actual water
“the path”), an indigenous, ancient hanami—“flower-viewing,” almost
Chinese philosophy that later devel- katagami—cut paper stencils used for
always a reference to gatherings
oped into a complex ritual-based dyeing on cloth
for viewing cherry blossoms
religion. Daoism conceives reality kazari—modes of decoration and
hinoki—cypress tree
as emerging from a vast void at the display
center of the universe that gener- hiragana—native Japanese script
kōgei—the modern Japanese language
ated a mysterious and omnipresent honji suijaku—the joint worship of word for crafts
energy (qi), comprised of compli- Buddhist deities (honji, or original
gods) and Shinto kami, the native kōgyō—industrial design
mentary yin (female) and yang
(male) forces. Its ritual practices manifestations (suijaku) of the kosode—a small-sleeved robe, precur-
and deities assist followers in their Buddhist deities sor of the kimono
quest to live in harmony with these iemoto seidō—headmaster system kuwashii—superb craftsmanship
forces. ikebana—the art of flower arranging kyōka—“crazy verse;” playful poetry
dentō kōgei—the modern Japanese iki—stylish, sophisticated elegance of the Edo period that parodied
language word for traditional crafts classical waka verse
jimi—somber and proper beauty
doro yaki—low-fired, matt-finish ma—an interval in time and space
jingasa—a flattened style samurai
cloisonné enameling
helmet originally worn by foot machiai—a waiting shelter for guests
ehon—illustrated books soldiers to tea ceremonies
fūryū—stylish elegance jūni hitoe—a twelve-layer robe worn makie—lacquer decorated with
ga—elegance by ladies of the Heian period sprinkled metallic powders

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 G LOSSA RY 151

matsuri—annual festivals held at ranma—transom in a Japanese room the stone water basin (chōzubachi)
Shinto shrines Rinpa (Rimpa)—“art of the Korin in a Japanese garden
mingei—folk crafts School”, a decorative style of suki—informal, subtle elegance
mitate—literally “viewed as,” an Japanese painting first created in sukiya—an informal form of Japanese
old literary term that by the 18th the 17th century residential architecture
century came to be used in titles of roji—gardens that lead to tea rooms sumi tsubo—an ink pot; a carpenter’s
ukiyoe prints of subjects that were rōnin—masterless samurai warriors tool for marking lines
humorous visual puns or allusions
sabi—appreciation for beauty in old tatami—rice straw mats used in tradi-
to classical literary themes
and withered things tional Japanese rooms
miyabi—opulent elegance
sekibutsu—stone Buddhist statues, Tōkaidō—the major highway that
mono no aware—wistful melancholia usually carved by and for linked the old imperial capital of
for beauty lost to the passage of time commoners Kyoto to Edo (Tokyo)
mushin—emptiness sekku—dates of annual purification tokkuri—bottles designed for storing
netsuke—a small carved toggle attached festivals marking seasonal passages and serving saké (rice wine)
to silk cords draped over sashes of (1/1, 3/3, 5/5, 7/7, 9/9)
tokonoma—an essential feature of
men’s Japanese robes, the opposite sencha—steeped leaf tea; also the traditional Japanese rooms; an
end of which was fastened to small name of the tea ceremony featuring alcove for display of a hanging
containers (inrō)for daily necessities, steeped tea scroll, flower arrangement, incense
such as tobacco or medicines.
seppuku—ritual, often forced, suicide burner, and other small decorative
Nihonga—modern Japanese-style objects
painting shakkei—“borrowed scenery,” a style
of traditional Japanese garden torii—gateways, often red, that mark
nijiri guchi—a crawl door for guests
design incorporating natural fea- the boundary of sacred Shinto
to enter tea rooms
tures beyond the boundaries of the shrines
ningen kokuhō—Living National garden proper tsuba—a sword guard
Treasure
shibui (adjective form of the noun: tsubo niwa—a courtyard garden
Nō (Noh)—classical theatrical drama shibusa or shibumi)—subtle and
featuring masked actors, music, and tsukubai—a small, usually stone,
unpretentious elegance
chanting basin or boulder, set low to the
Shinto—Japan’s indigenous faith, ground and filled with water for
nōtan—“dark–light,” a Japanese centered on kami worship the purification of the hands and
design term invented by Westerners
Shinzō—sculpture of Shinto deities mouths of visitors to shrines,
Onmyōdō—literally “the Way of yin– temples, and tea ceremonies
shippō yaki—cloisonné enameling
yang,” a set of syncretic Japanese
shoga—calligraphy and painting tsutsugaki—freehand paste-resist
ritualistic practices that encompass
shōgon—a Buddhist term for the dyeing
divination, setting of the calendar,
and performance of protective sacred beauty of life Ukiyo—the Floating World (euphe-
rites, based on Chinese Confucian shoin—a formal style of Japanese mism for licensed entertainment
and Daoist cosmological beliefs in residential architecture quarters)
conjunction with aspects of esoteric wabi—rustic elegance
shōji—paper-covered sliding doors
Buddhism and Shugendō (an indig-
shokunin—a professional artisan wabi-cha—a rustic-style tea ceremony
enous Japanese hybrid Buddhist
(literally “a person who possesses a for chanoyu
belief system based on shamanistic
folk practices drawn from Shinto skill”) waka—classical Japanese poetry form
and Daoism). soboku—artless simplicity of thirty-one syllables
qin—a Chinese zither-like stringed suikinkutsu—a musical bamboo pipe yūgen—the medieval Japanese word
instrument, favored by Confucian (literally “water qin [zither] cave”), for a deep and mysterious beauty
scholars through which water splashes into yūrei—ghost

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 152 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

America,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Ancient Art of Finding Perfect Love in Imperfect
ENDNOTES Texas at Austin, 2007. Relationships, New York: HarperOne, 2012.
12 John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society, 29 As quoted in Gordon, “The Bloom of Time
Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1958. For a Called Wabi and Sabi,” p. 123.
discussion of Gordon’s and others’ responses to 30 Ibid, p. 94.
Preface this book, see Robert Hobbs, “Affluence, Taste, 31 Hiroshi Nara, The Structure of Detachment:
and the Brokering of Knowledge: Notes on the The Aesthetic Vision of Kuki Shūzō, with a
1 From Lafcadio Hearn, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Social Context of Early Conceptual Art,” in translation of Iki no kōzō, Honolulu: University
Japan, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Company, Michael Corris (ed.), Conceptual Art: Theory of Hawaii Press, 2004, p. 1.
1894, pp. 8–9. For a moving and sensitive Myth, and Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge 32 Ibid, pp. 30–2.
biography of Hearn, see Jonathan Cott, University Press, 2004, pp. 200–2. 33 Quotation from Doris Croissant, “Icons of
Wandering Ghost: The Odyssey of Lafcadio 13 As quoted in Hobbs, “Affluence, Taste, and the Feminity: Japanese National Painting and the
Hearn, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991. Brokering of Knowledge,” p. 205. Paradox of Modernity,” in Joshua S. Mostow,
2 “Craftsmanship in Japanese Arts,” in Paul Kocot 14 Ibid, p. 207. Norman Bryson, and Maribeth Graybill (ed.),
Nietupski, Joan O’Mara, and Karil J. Kucera 15 Gordon’s papers relating to these issues are Gender and Power in the Japanese Visual Field,
(ed.), Reading Asian Art and Artifacts: Windows now part of the repository of the Archives of Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003,
to Asia on American College Campuses, the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler p. 135.
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: Lehigh University Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution. 34 Nara, The Structure of Detachment, p. 41.
Press, 2011, pp. 123–48. 16 Elizabeth Gordon, “The Profits of a Long 35 Ibid, p. 50.
Experience with Beauty,” House Beautiful, 36 See the discussion of fūryū in Nobuo Tsuji,
102/8, p. 87. “Ornament (Kazari): An Approach to Japanese
Chapter One 17 Elizabeth Gordon, “The Four Kinds of Japanese Culture,” Archives of Asian Art, 47, 1994, pp.
Beauty,” House Beautiful, 102/8, p. 120. 36–9.
1 See Kathyrn B. Hiesinger and Felice Fischer, 18 Elizabeth Gordon, from a caption to an 37 See Patricia J. Graham, Tea of the Sages: The
Japanese Design: A Survey Since 1950, illustration for the article “What Japan Art of Sencha, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i
Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Can Contribute to Your Way of Life, House Press, 1998.
1994; and Chiaki Ajioka, “Aspects of Twentieth- Beautiful, 102/8, p. 55. 38 As defined by John T. Carpenter in “‘Twisted’
Century Crafts: The New Craft and Mingei 19 Anthony West, “What Japan Has That We May Poses: The Kabuku Aesthetic in Early
Movements,” in J. Thomas Rimer (ed.), Since Profitably Borrow,” House Beautiful, 102/8, Edo Genre Painting,” in Nicole Coolidge
Meiji: Perspectives on the Japanese Visual Arts, 1960, p. 75. Rousmaniere (ed.), Kazari: Decoration and
1868–2000, Honolulu: University of Hawaii 20 Seizō Hayashiya, Chanoyu: Japanese Tea Display in Japan 15th–19th Centuries, London:
Press, 2012, pp. 408–44. Ceremony, New York: Japan Society, 1979. See The British Museum, 2002, pp. 42–4, and
2 Information from the International House of also H. Paul Varley and Isao Kumakura, Tea Carpenter’s introduction to section two of this
Japan website http://www.i-house.or.jp/en/ in Japan: Essays on the History of Chanoyu, volume, “Swagger of the New Military Elite:
index.html <accessed December 12, 2012> Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989, First Half of the 17th Century,” pp. 114–15.
3 Mori Masahiro, Kenji Kaneko, Masanori especially pp. 238–41. 39 Ibid, p. 43.
Moroyama, and Hitomi Kitamura, Mori 21 See Teiji Itō, Ikkō Tanaka, and Tsune Sesoko, 40 Professor Tsuji’s extensive publications on
Masahiro: tōjiki dezain no kakushin (Masahiro Wabi, Sabi, Suki: The Essence of Japanese this subject include Kisō no keifu: Matabe–
Mori, a reformer of ceramic design), Tokyo: Beauty, Hiroshima: Mazda Motor Co., 1993. Kuniyoshi, originally published in Japanese in
Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan, 2002. 22 D. T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, New 1970 and translated into English as Lineage of
4 Tange Kenzo et al., Katsura: Tradition and York: Pantheon, and London: Routledge and Eccentrics: Matabei to Kuniyoshi, Tokyo: Kaikai
Creation in Japanese Architecture, New Haven: Kegan Paul, 1959, pp. 23–4. Kiki Co., 2012; and Playfulness in Japanese Art,
Yale University Press, 1960. Prior to this 23 Yanagi Sōetsu and Bernard Leach, The The Franklin Murphy Lectures VII, Lawrence,
publication, Japanese modernist architect Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Kansas: Spencer Museum of Art, University of
Sutemi Horiguchi had authored a monograph Beauty,Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1972, Kansas, 1986.
on Katsura, released only in a Japanese p. 123. 41 Tenmyouya Hisashi, Basara: Japanese Art
language edition, so it had more limited 24 Elizabeth Gordon, “The Bloom of Time Called Theory Crossing Borders, From Jomon Pottery
impact. See Katsura rikyū, Tōkyō: Mainichi Wabi and Sabi,” House Beautiful, 102/8, 1960, to Decorated Trunks, Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-
Shinbunsha, 1952. pp. 96–7. sha, 2010, p. 11.
5 See Yasufumi Nakamori, Katsura: Picturing 25 Ibid, p. 97. 42 Kumakura Isao, “Keys to the Japanese Mind:
Modernism in Japanese Architecture, Houston: 26 Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, The Culture of MA,” Japan Echo, 34/1, 2007.
Museum of Fine Arts, 2010. Designers, Poets and Philosophers, Berkeley, 43 Isozaki Arata et al., Ma: Space-Time in Japan,
6 Isozaki Arata and Ishimoto Yasuhiro, Katsura California: Stone Bridge Press, 1994. New York: Cooper-Hewitt Museum, 1979. The
Villa: Space and Form, New York: Rizzoli, 1987; 27 Penelope Green, “At Home With Leonard exhibition also traveled to Paris.
translation of their Japanese language edition, Koren: An Idiosyncratic Designer, a Serene 44 See Isozaki’s more recent writing on ma in
1983. New Home,” The New York Times, September Isozaki Arata, Japan-ness in Architecture,
7 Isozaki Arata and Virginia Ponciroli, Katsura 23, 2010. Cambridge, Masachusetts: MIT Press, 2006,
Imperial Villa, Milan: Electa Architecture, 2004. 28 See, for example, Robyn Griggs Lawrence, The especially “Ma (Interstice) and Rubble,” pp.
8 Ibid, pp. 17–18. Wabi-Sabi House: The Japanese Art of Imperfect 81–100.
9 Ibid, p. 30. Beauty, New York: Clarkson Potter, 2004; Mark 45 Ibid, p. 12.
10 House Beautiful, 102/8, 1960, p. 4, quotation Reibstein and Ed Young, Wabi Sabi, New York: 46 Gian Carlo Calza, Japan Style, London:
from caption to the cover image of Katsura, Little, Brown, 2008, a children’s book featuring Phaidon Press, 2007, p. 110.
written by Gordon. a cat living in Kyoto named Wabi Sabi who 47 Ibid.
11 See Monica Michelle Penick, “The Pace Setter embarks on a quest to discover the meaning of 48 Koike Kazuo (ed.) (trans. Ken Frankel and
Houses: Livable Modernism in Postwar its name; and Arielle Ford, Wabi Sabi Love: The Yumiko Ide), Issey Miyake: East Meets West

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 ENDNOTES 153

(Miyake Issei no hasso to tankan), Tokyo: 2 See Shinji Turner-Yamamoto, Patricia Graham, B. Mirviss Ltd, 2011, pp. 11–17.
Heibonsha, 1978. and Justine Ludwig, Shinji Turner-Yamamoto 13 O-Young Lee, The Compact Culture: The
49 Arthur C. Danto, “Dialogues with Clay and Global Tree Project, Bologna: Damiani Editore, Japanese Tradition of Smaller Is Better, Tokyo:
Color,” in Susan Peterson, Jun Kaneko, London: 2012. Kodansha International, 1984, p. 19. Lee (b.
Laurence King Publishing, 2001, p. 11. 3 See Jacquelynn Baas and Mary Jane Jacob 1934) is a well respected cultural critic who
50 Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (trans. Thomas J. Harper (eds.), Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art, has spent time as a researcher and professor
and Edward G. Seidensticker), In Praise of Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004, in Japan and served as Korea’s first Minister
Shadows, New Haven: Leete’s Island Books, p. 265. of Culture.
1977, p. 14. 4 Gian Carlo Calza, Japan Style, London: 14 Ibid, p. 22. This point is also made by Shuji
51 Ibid, p. 19. Phaidon Press, 2007, p. 33. Takashina in “The Japanese Sense of Beauty,”
52 Dorr Bothwell and Marlys Mayfield, Notan: 5 On mono no aware, see Shuji Takashina, in Alexandra Munroe (ed.), From the Suntory
The Dark–Light Principle of Design, New York: “The Japanese Sense of Beauty,” in Alexandra Museum of Art, Autumn Grasses and Water,
Reinhold Book Corp., 1968; reprinted New Munroe (ed.), From the Suntory Museum of Art, New York: Japan Society, 1983, p. 10.
York: Dover, 1991. Autumn Grasses and Water: Motifs in Japanese 15 See Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (ed.),
53 Ibid, Dover reprint, pp. 6–7. Art, New York: Japan Society, 1983, pp. 10–11. “Competition and Collaboration: Hereditary
54 Ibid, p. 78. See also Haruo Shirane, Japan and the Culture Schools in Japanese Culture,” Fenway Court,
55 As correctly explained by Joseph Masheck of the Four Seasons: Nature, Literature, and the Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum,
in his essay, “Dow’s ‘Way’ to Modernity for Arts, New York: Columbia University Press, 1992; and P. G. O’Neill, “Organization and
Everybody,” in Arthur W. Dow and Joseph 2012. Authority in the Traditional Arts,” Modern
Masheck, Composition: A Series of Exercises 6 On yūgen, see Richard B. Pilgrim, Buddhism Asian Studies, 8/4, 1984, pp. 631–45.
in Art Structure for the Use of Students and and the Arts of Japan, New York: Columbia 16 See Roger S. Keyes, Ehon: The Artist of the
Teachers, Berkeley: University of California University Press, 1993, second revised edition, Book in Japan, New York: The New York Public
Press, 1997, p. 21. This book is a reprint of pp. 35–8; Stephen Addiss, Gerald Groemer, Library, 2006.
Dow’s original book on the subject, with a and J. Thomas Rimer, Traditional Japanese 17 Morgan Pitelka, Handmade Culture: Raku
slightly different title, Composition: A Series Arts and Culture: An Illustrated Sourcebook, Potters, Patrons, and Tea Practitioners in Japan,
of Exercises Selected from a New System of Art Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005,
Education, Part I, Boston: J. M. Bowles, 1899. pp. 93–5; and Graham Parkes, “Japanese p. 141.
56 Sharon Himes, “Notan: Design in Light and Aesthetics,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of 18 See Haruo Shirani, Japan and the Culture of the
Dark,” ArtCafe, March 9, 2011 http://artcafe. Philosophy (ed. Edward N. Zalta), 2011 Four Seasons.
net/?p=117 <accessed December 12, 2012> edition, <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ 19 See, for example, Conrad Totman, The Green
57 See Yūzō Yamane, “The Formation and win2011/entries/japanese-aesthetics/ <accessed Archipelago: Forestry in Preindustrial Japan,
Development of Rimpa Art,” in Yūzō Yamane, December 15, 2012> Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989;
Masato Naitō, and Timothy Clark, Rimpa Art 7 Dōshin Satō, Modern Japanese Art and The and Ian Jared Miller, Julia Adeney Thomas,
From the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, London: Meiji State: The Politics of Beauty, Los Angeles: and Brett L. Walker, Japan at Nature’s Edge:
British Museum Press, 1998, pp. 13–14. Getty Research Institute, 2011, pp. 70–8; The Environmental Context of a Global Power,
58 John T. Carpenter, Designing Nature: The originally published as Meiji kokka to kindai Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2013.
Rinpa Aesthetic in Japanese Art, New York: bijutsu: bi no seijigaku, Tokyo: Yoshikawa For a scathing critique of land abuse in
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012, p. 11. Kōbunkan, 1999. contemporary Japan, see Alex Kerr, Dogs and
59 Sherman E. Lee, Japanese Decorative Style, 8 Ibid, p. 78. Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan,
Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1961, 9 Rupert Faulkner, Japanese Studio Crafts: New York: Hill and Wang, 2001.
p. 7. Tradition and the Avant-Garde, London: The 20 On Ōnmyōdō, see “Onmyōdō in Japanese
60 Ibid, p. 8. Victoria and Albert Museum, 1995, p. 12. History,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies,
61 Sherman E. Lee, The Genius of Japanese Design, 10 On crafts makers designated as Living National 40/1, 2013.
Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1981. Treasures and others, see Nicole Rousmaniere 21 Merrily Baird, Symbols of Japan: Thematic
62 Michael Dunn et al., Traditional Japanese (ed.), Crafting Beauty in Modern Japan: Motifs in Art and Design, New York: Rizolli
Design: Five Tastes, New York: Harry N. Celebrating Fifty Years of the Japan Traditional International, 2001, pp. 9–25.
Abrams, 2001. Art Crafts Exhibition, Seattle: University of 22 On sekku, see U. A. Casal, The Five Sacred
63 Michael Dunn, Inspired Design: Japan’s Washington Press, 2007. See also Masataka Festivals of Ancient Japan: Their Symbolism
Traditional Arts, Milan: 5 Continents Editions, Ogawa et al., The Enduring Crafts of Japan: 33 and Historical Development, Tokyo: Sophia
2005. Living National Treasures, New York: Walker/ University and Charles E. Tuttle, Co., 1967.
64 Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, “Arts of Weatherhill, 1968. For a survey of traditional 23 See Nobuo Tsuji, Playfulness in Japanese Art,
Kazari: Japan on Display,” in Nicole Coolidge crafts made in Japan today, see Diane Durston, Lawrence, Kansas: Spencer Museum of Art,
Rousmaniere (ed.), Kazari: Decoration and Japan Crafts Sourcebook: A Guide to Today’s University of Kansas, 1986; and Christine Guth,
Display in Japan 15th–19th Centuries, London: Traditional Handmade Objects, Tokyo: Asobi: Play in the Arts of Japan, Katonah, New
The British Museum, 2002, pp. 20–1. Kodansha International, 1996. York: Katonah Museum of Art, 1992.
65 Calza, Japan Style, p. 9. 11 Uchiyama Takao, “The Japan Traditional Art 24 On samurai taste, see Andreas Marks,
66 Ibid, p. 109. Crafts Exhibition: Its History and Spirit,” in Rhiannon Paget, and Sabine Schenk, Lethal
Nicole Rousmaniere (ed.), Crafting Beauty in Beauty: Samurai Weapons and Armor,
Modern Japan: Celebrating Fifty Years of the Washington, DC: International Arts and
Chapter Two Japan Traditional Art Crafts Exhibition, Seattle: Artists, 2012.
University of Washington Press, 2007, p. 32.
1 Langdon Warner, The Enduring Art of Japan, 12 Rupert Faulkner, “Sōdeisha: Engine Room of
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952; the Japanese Avant-garde,” in Joan B. Mirviss
reprint New York: Grove Press, 1978, pp. Ltd (ed.), Birds of Dawn: Pioneers of Japan’s
18–19. Sōdeisha Ceramic Movement, New York: Joan

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Chapter Three 8 For a discussion of this point, see Henry Yuko, Katagami Style, exhibition catalogue
Adams, “John La Farge’s Discovery of Japanese (in Japanese with a separate English text
1 Rutherford Alcock, Art and Art Industries in Art: New Perspectives on the Origins of supplement), Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum,
Japan, London: Virtue and Co., 1878. Japonisme,” Art Bulletin, 67, 1985, pp. 475–6. Tokyo: Nikkei, 2012.
2 Thomas J. Cutler, A Grammar of Japanese 9 Ibid, p. 478. 27 Basic biographical information from Anne
Ornament and Design, London: B. T. Batsford, 10 On La Farge and Buddhism, see Christine Helmreich, “Marcus Huish (1843–1921),”
1880; and George Ashdown Audsley, The M. E. Guth, “The Cult of Kannon Among Victorian Review, 37/1, 2011, pp. 26–30.
Ornamental Arts of Japan, London: Sampson Nineteenth Century American Japanophiles,” 28 Marcus Bourne Huish, Japan and Its Art,
Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1882. Orientations, 26/11, 1995, pp. 28–34. London: B. T. Batsford, third edition, 1912,
3 See Olive Checkland, Japan and Britain after 11 See Christopher Benfey, The Great Wave: p. 342.
1859: Creating Cultural Bridges, London: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and 29 Ibid, p. 5.
RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, pp. 87–8. the Opening of Old Japan, New York: Random 30 Ken Vos, “The Composition of the Siebold
4 For examples of what arts Japan displayed at House, 2003, pp. 141–68. Collection in the National Museum of
the fairs, see Los Angeles County Museum 12 John La Farge, An Artist’s Letters from Japan, Ethnology in Leiden,” Senri Ethnological
of Art, Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan, New York: The Century Co., 1897. Studies, 54, 2001, pp. 39–48.
Nihon Hōsō Kyōkai, NHK Puromōshon, 13 Biographical information based on Theodore 31 Siebold never published the 700–800 paintings
Ōsaka Shiritsu Bijutsukan, and Nagoya-shi Bowie, “Portrait of a Japanologist,” in Jack he collected, but his handwritten notes
Hakubutsukan, Japan Goes to the World’s Fairs: Ronald Hillier and Matthi Forrer (ed.), Essays described them as “scientific objects” and he
Japanese Art at the Great Expositions in Europe on Japanese Art Presented to Jack Hillier, categorized them according to thematic topics.
and the United States, 1867–1904, Los Angeles, London: R. G. Sawers Publishing, 1982, pp. See W. R. van Gulik, “Scroll Paintings in the
California: LACMA, Tokyo National Museum, 27–31. Von Siebold Collection,” in Matthi Forrer,
NHK, and NHK Promotions Co., 2005. See 14 Henry P. Bowie, On the Laws of Japanese Willem R. van Gulik, Jack Ronald Hillier, and
also Ellen P. Conant, “Refractions of the Rising Painting: An Introduction to the Study of the Art H. M. Kaempfer (eds.), A Sheaf of Japanese
Sun: Japan’s Participation at International of Japan, San Francisco: P. Elder and Company, Papers, The Hague: Society for Japanese Arts
Exhibitions 1862–1910,” in Tomoko Sato and 1911. and Crafts, 1979, p. 59.
Toshio Watanabe (eds.), Japan and Britain: An 15 Denman Waldo Ross, A Theory of Pure Design: 32 Philipp Franz von Siebold, Nippon. Archiv
Aesthetic Dialogue 1850–1930, London: Lund Harmony, Balance, Rhythm, With Illustrations zur beschreibung von Japan und dessen neben-
Humphries in association with the Barbican and Diagrams, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1907. und schutzländern Jezo mit den südlichen
Art Gallery and the Setagaya Art Museum, 16 Ibid, p. 194. Kurilen, Sachalin, Korea und den Liukiu-inseln.
1991, pp. 79–92. 17 For a discussion of this issue, see Marie Frank, Originally published beginning in 1832; a
5 On the Boston exhibition, see Museum of Denman Ross and American Design Theory, complete posthumous enlarged edition was
Fine Arts, Boston (ed.), Illustrated Catalogue Lebanon, New Hampshire: University Press of published by Würzburg: L. Woerl, 1897.
of a Special Loan Exhibition of Art Treasures New England, 2011, pp. 68–72. 33 Frank, Denman Ross and American Design
from Japan, Held in Conjunction with the 18 Thomas S. Michie, “Western Collecting of Theory, p. 239.
Tercentenary Celebration of Harvard University, Japanese Stencils and Their Impact in America,” 34 Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Edward
September–October, 1936, Boston: Museum in Susanna Kuo, Richard L. Wilson, and Sylvester Morse, Catalogue of the Morse
of Fine Arts, 1936. On the San Francisco Thomas S. Michie, Carved Paper: The Art of Collection of Japanese Pottery, Cambridge:
exhibition, see Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai the Japanese Stencil, Santa Barbara, California: Riverside Press, 1900.
(ed.), Catalogue of Japanese Art in the Palace Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1998, p. 163. 35 Edward Sylvester Morse, Japan Day by Day,
of Fine and Decorative Arts at the Golden Gate 19 Ibid, p. 158. 1877, 1878–79, 1882–83, two volumes, Boston:
International Exposition on Treasure Island, 20 Kevin Nute, Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917.
San Francisco, California, 1939, Tokyo: Kokusai The Role of Traditional Japanese Art and 36 Ibid, vol. 1, pp. 252–3.
Bunka Shinkokai, 1939; Langdon Warner, “Arts Architecture in the Work of Frank Lloyd Wright, 37 Percival Lowell, Occult Japan, or, The Way of the
of the Pacific Basin: Golden Gate International New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993, p. 86. Gods: An Esoteric Study of Japanese Personality
Exposition,” Magazine of Art, 32/3, 1939; and 21 Arthur Wesley Dow, “A Note on Japanese Art and Possession, Boston: Houghton Mifflin and
Pacific Cultures, Department of Fine Arts, and on What the American Artist May Learn Co., 1894.
Division of Pacific Cultures, San Francisco: There-From,” The Knight Errant, 1/4, 1893, pp. 38 Percival Lowell, The Soul of the Far East,
Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939. 114–17. This article preceded his influential Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1888.
6 The Society for International Cultural Relations book on the subject, Composition: A Series of 39 Ibid, pp. 110–11.
(KBS) was created soon after Japan withdrew Exercises Selected from a New System of Art 40 Ibid, pp. 131–2.
from the League of Nations in 1933 as a way Education, Part I, Boston: J. M. Bowles, 1899. 41 Information on Dresser and Japan comes from
to independently continue the aims of that 22 Dow, “A Note on Japanese Art,” p. 113. Widar Halén, “Dresser and Japan,” in Michael
organization through furthering international 23 Ibid, p. 115. Whiteway (ed.), Shock of the Old: Christopher
understanding about Japanese art, history, 24 Joseph Masheck, “Dow’s ‘Way’ to Modernity Dresser’s Design Revolution, London: Victoria
and culture. It produced numerous English for Everybody,” in Arthur W. Dow and Joseph and Albert Museum Publications, 2004, pp.
language publications by both Japanese and Masheck, Composition: A Series of Exercises 127–39.
foreign authors and sponsored lecture series in Art Structure for the Use of Students and 42 He first wrote about Japanese art in his book,
and art exhibitions abroad. It was succeeded Teachers, Berkeley: University of California The Art of Decorative Design, London: Day and
by the Japan Foundation in 1972. Press, 1997, p. 21. Son, 1862.
7 John La Farge, “Japanese Art,” in Raphael 25 Gabriel P. Weisberg, Edwin Becker, and Evelyne 43 Christopher Dresser, Japan: Its Architecture,
Pumpelly, John La Farge, W. J. Linton, and Possémé, The Origins of L’art Nouveau: The Bing Art and Art Manufactures, London: Longmans,
Julius Bien, Across America and Asia: Notes of Empire, Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum, 2004. Green, and Co., 1882; reprinted London: Kegan
a Five Years’ Journey Around the World, and of 26 See Michie, “Western Collecting of Japanese Paul International, 2001; reprinted New York:
Residence in Arizona, Japan, and China, New Stencils,” p. 156; and Mabuchi Akiko, Dover as Traditional Arts and Crafts of Japan,
York: Leypoldt & Holt, 1870, pp. 195–202. Takagi Yoko, Nagasaki Iwao, and Ikeda 1994.

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 ENDNOTES 155

44 Ibid (Kegan Paul edition), p. vi.

45 Ibid, p. 114.
46 Halén, “Dresser and Japan,” p. 134.
47 Biographical information comes from Fujimori
Terunobu, “Afterword: Josiah Conder and
Japan,” in J. Conder, Landscape Gardening in
Japan: With the Author’s 1912 Supplement to
Landscape Gardening in Japan, Foreword by
Azby Brown, Tokyo: Kodansha International,
2002, pp. 230–40. Terunobu’s essay was
originally published in the exhibition catalogue:
Kawanabe Kusumi et al. (eds.), Josaia Kondoru
ten: Rokumeikan no kenchikuka/Josiah Conder:
A Victorian Architect in Japan, Tokyo: Higashi
Nihon Tetsudō Bunka Zaidan, 1997, and
also included in the enlarged reprint of that
catalogue, Suzuki Hiroyuki et al., Josiah Conder,
Tokyo: Kenchiku Gahōsha, 2009.
48 See Yamaguchi Seiichi, “Josiah Conder on
Japanese Studies,” in Hiroyuki Suzuki et al.,
Josiah Conder, pp. 49–52.
49 Josiah Conder, The Flowers of Japan and the Art
of Floral Arrangement, Tokyo: Hakubunsha,
Ginza, 1891. pp. 20–21. The painting is reproduced in Ernest Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into
50 Ibid, p. 2. Fenollosa, Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Beauty, Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1972.
51 Ibid, p. 41. Art: An Outline History of East Asiatic Design, 75 For critiques of Yanagi, see Yuko Kikuchi,
52 J. Conder and K. Ogawa, Supplement to London: William Heineman, 1912, vol. 2, Japanese Modernisation and Mingei Theory:
Landscape Gardening in Japan, vol. 2, Tokyo: opposite p. 132 and discussed on p. 134. Cultural Nationalism and Oriental Orientalism,
Kelly and Walsh, 1893, description to plate 64 Fenollosa, Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004; and Kim
XXII. vol. 2, p. 129. Brandt, Kingdom of Beauty: Mingei and the
53 Josiah Conder, Landscape Gardening in Japan, 65 Ibid. Politics of Folk Art in Imperial Japan, Durham:
Tokyo: Kelly and Walsh, 1893; and Conder and 66 See Timothy Clark, “‘The Intuition and the Duke University Press, 2007. See also Chiaki
Ogawa, Supplement to Landscape Gardening in Genius of Decoration:’ Critical Reactions to Ajioka, “Aspects of Twentieth-Century Crafts:
Japan. In 1912, Conder published an expanded Rinpa Art in Europe and the USA During The New Craft and Mingei Movements,” in J.
and revised version of the supplement that was the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Thomas Rimer (ed.), Since Meiji: Perspectives on
reprinted by Kodansha in 2002 (see fn. 47). Centuries,” in Yūzō Yamane, Masato Naitō, and the Japanese Visual Arts, 1868–2000, Honolulu:
54 Nute, Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan, p. 86. Timothy Clark, Rinpa Art: From the Idemitsu University of Hawaii Press, 2012, pp. 424–31.
55 Frank Lloyd Wright, Hiroshige: An Exhibition of Collection, Tokyo, London: British Museum 76 Langdon Warner, The Enduring Art of Japan,
Colour Prints from the Collection of Frank Lloyd Press, 1998, pp. 72–3. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952,
Wright, Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1906. 67 John Clark, “Okakura Tenshin and Aesthetic p. 83.
56 Frank Lloyd Wright, The Japanese Print, Nationalism,” in J. Thomas Rimer (ed.), Since 77 Theodore Sizer, “James Jackson Jarves: A
An Interpretation, Chicago: Ralph Fletcher Meiji: Perspectives on the Japanese Visual Arts, Forgotten New Englander,” New England
Seymour Co., 1912. 1868–2000, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Quarterly, 6/2, 1933, p. 328.
57 Julia Meech, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Art of Press, 2012, p. 212. 78 James Jackson Jarves, A Glimpse at the Art of
Japan: The Architect’s Other Passion, New York: 68 Ibid, pp. 236–8. For perceptive reassessments Japan, New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1876;
Harry N. Abrams, 2000, p. 267. of Okakura by numerous scholars, see also reprinted Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing,
58 Ibid, p. 270. “Beyond Tenshin: Okakura Kakuzo’s Multiple 1984, p. 155 (Tuttle edition).
59 Fundamentals of Japanese Architecture, Tokyo: Legacies,” Review of Japanese Culture and 79 Ibid, p. 136.
Kokusai Bunka Shinkōkai, 1936; and Houses Society, Josai University Journal, vol. 24, 2012. 80 Ibid, p. 139.
and Peoples of Japan, Tokyo: Sanseidō, 1937. 69 Kakuzō Okakura, The Book of Tea, New York: 81 Gabriel P. Weisberg, “Buhot’s Japonisme
60 See Jonathan M. Reynolds, “Ise Shrine and a Putnam’s Sons, 1906, p. 1. Portfolio Revisited,” Cantor Arts Center Journal,
Modernist Construction of Japanese Tradition,” 70 D. T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, 2010 6, 2008/9, pp. 35–45.
The Art Bulletin, 83/2, 2001, pp. 316–41. reprint, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 82 Théodore Duret, Voyage En Asie, Paris: Michel
61 For a critical biography, see Ellen P. Conant, p. 27. Lévy, 1874, p. 23. English translation from
“Captain Frank Brinkley Resurrected,” in Oliver 71 Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Zen Buddhism and Its Jacquelynn Baas, Smile of the Buddha: Eastern
R. Impey and Malcolm Fairley (eds.), The Influence on Japanese Culture, Kyoto: Eastern Philosophy and Western Art from Monet to
Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Japanese Art, Umi Buddhist Society, 1938. Today, Berkeley: University of California Press,
o watatta Nihon no bijutsu. Dai 1-kan, Ronbun 72 See Richard Jaffe’s introduction to the 2010 2005, p. 22.
hen (Decorative arts of the Meiji period from edition. 83 Sadakichi Hartmann, Japanese Art, Boston:
the Nasser D. Khalili Collection, vol .1, Essays), 73 See Jane Naomi Iwamura, “Zen’s Personality: L. C. Page, 1903, pp. 248–9.
London: Kibo Foundation, 1995, pp. 124–50. D. T. Suzuki,” Virtual Orientalism: Asian 84 Ernest Hart, “Ritsuō and His School,” Artistic
62 Atlantic Monthly, 0/417, 1892, pp. 14–33. Religions and American Popular Culture, Japan, 2/12, pp. 142–3. For further discussion
63 As discussed in John T. Carpenter, Designing New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, and additional photos of these statues, see
Nature: The Rinpa Aesthetic in Japanese Art, pp. 23–62. Paul Moss, One Hundred Years of Beatitude:
New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012, 74 Muneyoshi Yanagi and Bernard Leach, The A Centenary Exhibition of Japanese Art,

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 156 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

London: Sydney L. Moss, 2011, pp. 192–8. Binyon, Koya San: Four Poems from Japan,
85 Gabriel P. Weisberg, The Independent Critic: London: Red Lion, 1932. Three poems were
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Philippe Burty and the Visual Arts of Mid- reprinted in The North Star and Other Poems,
Nineteenth Century France, New York: P. Lang, 1941.
1993. 97 See Ewick, “Laurence Binyon, Matsushima As with all my writings, I am greatly
86 Théodore Duret, L’art Japonais: Les Livres (1932).”
Illustrés, Les Albums Imprimés: Hokousai, Paris: 98 Laurence Binyon, Painting in the Far East: An beholden to my generous husband
Quantin, 1882. Introduction to the History of Pictorial Art in David Dunfield for his support and
87 Théodore Duret, Voyage En Asie, Paris: Michel Asia, Especially China and Japan, London:
assistance throughout this project,
Lévy, 1874. E. Arnold, 1908.
88 Louis Gonse, L’art Japonais, Paris: Librairies- 99 Ibid, third edition, 1923, p. 215. including his careful reading of manu-
imprimeries réunies, 1886. English edition, 100 Laurence Binyon, The Flight of the Dragon: An script drafts and for his photography. I
Japanese Art, Chicago: Morrill, Higgins and Essay on the Theory and Practice of Art in China
Co., 1891. and Japan, Based on Original Sources, London:
am very thankful to the many private
89 Timothy Clark, “The Intuition and the Genius John Murray, 1911. collectors, artists, museum curators,
of Decoration,” in Yūzō Yamane, Masato 101 Laurence Binyon, The Spirit of Man in Asian and friends who arranged for me to
Naitō, and Timothy Clark, Rimpa Art From Art: Being the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures
the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, London: British Delivered in Harvard University, 1933–34, use photographs at little or no charge,
Museum Press, 1998, pp. 68–9. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University especially Colin MacKenzie and
90 Ibid, pp. 72–3, for a discussion of Gonse’s Press, 1935.
assessment of Rinpa in relation to Fenollosa. 102 Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin, 8/47, 1910, p. 39.
Stacey Sherman of the Nelson-Atkins
91 As discussed in Cary Nelson, “Contemporary 103 Warner, The Enduring Art of Japan. Museum of Art. Thanks are also due
Portraits of Sadakichi Hartmann,” Modern 104 Ibid, p. 7. to the many people with whom I
American Poetry. http://www.english.illinois. 105 Ibid, p. 17.
edu/maps/poets/g_l/hartmann/portraits.htm 106 Ibid, p. 80. had discussions about this project
<accessed September 5, 2012> 107 See John Rosenfield, “Dedication: Langdon over many years, who helped in the
92 David Ewick, “Hartmann, Sadakichi. Works Warner (1881–1955),” in Kurata Bunsaku,
1898?–1915?” Japonisme, Orientalism, Horyū-ji, Temple of the Exalted Law: Early
procurement of photos and graciously
Modernism: A Critical Bibliography of Japan Buddhist Art from Japan, New York: Japan allowed me to view and photograph
in English-language Verse of the Early 20th Society, 1981. their collections: Joan Baekeland,
Century, 2003. http://themargins.net/bib/B/ 108 Among his better known publications that
BC/bc24.html#bc24a <accessed September 4, have been reprinted in the post-war period Cynthea Bogel, John Carpenter,
2012> are The Gardens of Japan, London: The Studio Bill Clark, Sue Clark, Ellen Conant,
93 Biographical information is drawn from Publications, 1928, and The Lesson of Japanese
Gerald and Alice Dietz, Bob and Betsy
George Knox, “Introduction,” The Life and Architecture, London: The Studio Publications,
Times of Sadakichi Hartmann, 1867–1944, 1936. On how his perspective about gardens Feinberg, David Frank and Kazukuni
catalogue of an exhibition at the University differed from that of earlier writer Josiah Sugiyama, Hollis Goodall, Philip Hu,
Library and the Riverside Press-Enterprise Conder, see Toshio Watanabe, “The Modern
Co.,University of California, Riverside, May Japanese Garden,” in J. Thomas Rimer (ed.),
Junko Isozaki, Lee Johnson, Janice
1–May 31, 1970; University of California, Since Meiji: Perspectives on the Japanese Visual Katz, Yoshi Munemura of Koichi
Riverside, John Batchelor, Clifford Wurfel, and Arts, 1868–2000, Honolulu: University of Yanagi Oriental Fine Arts, Rob Mintz,
Harry W. Lawton, The Sadakichi Hartmann Hawaii Press, 2012, p. 350.
Papers: A Descriptive Inventory of the Collection 109 Jirō Harada, A Glimpse of Japanese Ideals; Andreas Marks, Julia Meech, Joan
in the University of California, Riverside, Lectures on Japanese Art and Culture, Tokyo: Mirviss, Halsey and Alice North, Beth
Library, Riverside, California: The Library, Kokusai Bunka Shinkōkai, 1937.
1980. See also Jane Calhoun Weaver, Sadakichi 110 Ibid, p. 6.
Schultz, Fred Schneider, Joe Seubert,
Hartmann: Critical Modernist: Collected Art 111 Ibid, p. 8. Takishita Yoshihiro, and Matthew
Writings, Berkeley: University of California 112 Ibid, p. 9. Welch. Lastly, I want to acknowledge
Press, 1991. 113. Ibid, p. 207.
94 Sadakichi Hartmann, A History of American 114 Ibid. Eric Oey, publisher at Tuttle, for his
Art, 2 volumes, Boston: L. C. Page, 1902; 115 Noritake Tsuda, Handbook of Japanese Art, insightful suggestions for text revi-
reprinted London: Hutchinson, 1903; revised Tokyo: Sanseidō, 1935; reprinted Rutland,
edition, 1932. Vermont: Tuttle Publishing as A History of
sions, and his editors, Cal Barksdale,
95 Sadakichi Hartmann, Japanese Art, Boston: Japanese Art: From Prehistory to the Taisho Sandra Korinchak, and June Chong,
L. C. Page, 1903; reprinted New York: Horizon Period with a Foreword by Patricia Graham, for making this book a reality. Carol
Press, 1971, and Albequerque: American 2009.
Classical College Press as The Illustrated 116 Andrew W. Tuer, The Book of Delightful and Morland served as a perceptive and
Guidebook of Japanese Painting, 1978. Strange Designs Being One Hundred Facsimile enthusiastic reader of a preliminary
96 David Ewick, “Laurence Binyon, Matushima Illustrations of the Art of the Japanese Stencil-
draft of the entire manuscript, and
(1932),” Japonisme, Orientalism, Modernism: Cutter &c., London: Leadenhall Press, 1892;
A Critical Bibliography of Japan in English- reprinted New York: Dover as Traditional Mary Mortensen again, ably, prepared
language Verse of the Early 20th Century, Japanese Patterns, 1967. the index. I dedicate this book to my
2003. http://themargins.net/anth/1930–1939/
binyonmatsushima.html <accessed September
Mom, Ruth, and in memory of my
4, 2012> Originally published in Laurence Dad, Arthur Graham, with gratitude.

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 FURTHER READING 157

FURTHER READING Kuo, Susanna, Richard L. Wilson, Richie, Donald, A Tractate on Japanese
and Thomas S. Michie, Carved Paper: Aesthetics, Berkeley, California: Stone
The Art of the Japanese Stencil, Santa Bridge Press, 2007.
Addiss, Stephen, Gerald Groemer, and Barbara, California: Santa Barbara
Rousmaniere, Nicole Coolidge (ed.),
J. Thomas Rimer, Traditional Japanese Museum of Art, 1998.
Crafting Beauty in Modern Japan:
Arts and Culture: An Illustrated
Lee, O-Young, The Compact Culture: Celebrating Fifty Years of the Japan
Sourcebook, Honolulu: University of
The Japanese Tradition of Smaller Is Traditional Art Crafts Exhibition,
Hawai’i Press, 2006.
Better, Tokyo: Kodansha International, Seattle: University of Washington
Baird, Merrily, Symbols of Japan: 1984. Press, 2007.
Thematic Motifs in Art and Design,
Lee, Sherman E., The Genius of _____, Kazari: Decoration and Display
New York: Rizolli International, 2001.
Japanese Design, Tokyo: Kodansha in Japan 15th–19th Centuries, London:
Benfey, Christopher, The Great Wave: International, 1981. The British Museum, 2002.
Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics,
_____, Japanese Decorative Style, Shirane, Haruo, Japan and the Culture
and the Opening of Old Japan, New
Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, of the Four Seasons: Nature, Literature,
York: Random House, 2003.
1961. and the Arts, New York: Columbia
Calza, Gian Carlo, Japan Style, London: University Press, 2012.
Meech, Julia, Frank Lloyd Wright and
Phaidon Press, 2007.
the Art of Japan: The Architect’s Other Sigur, Hannah, The Influence of
Carpenter, John T., Designing Nature: Passion, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Japanese Art on Design, Layton, Utah:
The Rinpa Aesthetic in Japanese Art, 2000. Gibbs Smith, 2008.
New York: Metropolitan Museum of
Mizoguchi, Saburo (trans. Louise Suzuki, D. T. (Daisetz Teitaro), Zen
Art, 2012.
Allison Cort), Design Motifs (Arts of and Japanese Culture, Princeton, New
Dunn, Michael, Inspired Design: Japan’s Japan, vol. 1), New York: Weatherhill Jersey: Princeton University Press,
Traditional Arts, Milan: 5 Continents and Shibundo, 1973. 1938; reprinted with an Introduction
Editions, 2005. by Richard M. Jaffe, 2010.
Munroe, Alexandra (ed.), From the
Dunn, Michael et al., Traditional Suntory Museum of Art, Autumn Tanizaki, Jun’ichirō (trans. Thomas J.
Japanese Design: Five Tastes, New York: Grasses and Water: Motifs in Japanese Harper and Edward G. Seidensticker),
Harry N. Abrams, 2001. Art, New York: Japan Society, 1983. In Praise of Shadows, New Haven:
Leete’s Island Books, 1977.
Faulkner, Rupert, Japanese Studio Nara, Hiroshi, The Structure of
Crafts: Tradition and the Avant-Garde, Detachment: The Aesthetic Vision of Tsuji, Nobuo, Lineage of Eccentrics:
London: The Victoria and Albert Kuki Shūzō, with a translation of Iki no Matabei to Kuniyoshi, Tokyo: Kaikai
Museum, 1995. kōzō, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Kiki Co., 2012.
Press, 2004.
Guth, Christine, Asobi: Play in the Arts Warner, Langdon, The Enduring Art of
of Japan, Katonah, New York: Katonah Oka, Midori, “The Indulgence of Japan, Cambridge: Harvard University
Museum of Art, 1992. Design in Japanese Art,” Arts of Asia, Press, 1952; reprinted New York: Grove
36/3, 2006, pp. 81–93. Press, 1978.
Hiesinger, Kathyrn B. and Felice
Fischer, Japanese Design: A Survey Okakura, Kakuzō, The Book of Tea, Weisberg, Gabriel P., and Petra
Since 1950, Philadelphia: Philadelphia New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1906. ten-Doesschate Chu, The Orient
Museum of Art, 1994. Expressed: Japan’s Influence on Western
Parkes, Graham, “Japanese Aesthetics,”
Art, 1854–1918, Jackson: Mississippi
Isozaki, Arata and Virginia Poncirolli, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Museum of Art, 2011.
Katsura Imperial Villa, Milan: Electa (Winter 2011 Edition), Edward N.
Architecture, 2004. Zalta (ed.), <http://plato.stanford.edu/ Yamane, Yūzō, Masato Naitō, and
archives/win2011/entries/japanese- Timothy Clark, Rinpa Art: From the
Keyes, Roger S., Ehon: The Artist of
aesthetics/ <accessed December 15, Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, London:
the Book in Japan, New York: The New
2012>. British Museum Press, 1998.
York Public Library, 2006.

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 158 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

Index 75, 81, 140, 142, 144; Western interest influence, 118, 130, 135, 136, 144, 148;
in, 138, 142; yūgen, 41–42, 77–78, 126. on Japanese art and design, 45, 51–52,
See also Zen Buddhism 120, 121, 122, 135–136
Buddhist temples: gardens, 77, 78, 126; festivals, 98, 99, 100, 101, 104. See also
meditation hall, 77; Shinto shrines and, purification rituals
70; Zen, 23, 77, 78, 126, 137–138 flower arranging. See ikebana
Bold page numbers refer to plates. Buhot, Félix Hilaire, 140 folk crafts. See mingei
Burty, Philippe, 118, 123, 140–141, 142 Freer, Charles Lang, 121, 135
Adams, Henry, 118, 136–137 busshi, 81, 150 Fujiwara no Nobuzane, 110
Alcock, Sir Rutherford, 115, 127 fūryū, 28–31, 150
Anderson, William, 123 calendars, lunar and solar, 99. See also sekku
Andō Tadao, 58–59 calligraphy, 50, 50, 51, 53, 89 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 18
architects: Japanese, 11, 13–14, 18–19; Calza, Gian Carlo, 42–43, 58–59, 75 gardens: International House of Japan,
Western, 12–14, 18, 115, 128–132. See Carpenter, John T., 52–53 11; Katsura, 14; Kinkakuji, 147; Nijō
also Andō Tadao; Isozaki Arata; Kuma Carus, Paul, 138 Castle, 97; Rikugien, 12, 129; roji, 20;
Kengo; Takishita Yoshihiro; Taniguchi ceramics, modern and contemporary: Ryōanji, 77; Saihōji, 126; shakkei, 97,
Yoshio; Taniguchi Yoshiro; Ueno Hamada Shōji, 82; Mori Masahiro, 11; 151; Shisendō, 19; Sumiya, 19, 137;
Masao; Wright, Frank Lloyd Sakiyama Takayuki, 56; Satsuma-style, temple, 77, 78, 126, 147; Western
architecture, 12–17, 18, 19, 49, 83, 80; Takegoshi Jun, 64; Tsujimura Shirō, writers on, 129–130
130–132 61; Yamada Hikaru, 82 Gardner, Isabella Stewart, 121, 137
armor, 38 ceramics, pre-modern: Arita ware, 33, 55, gei, 81, 150
art collectors: of ceramics, 125–126, 140; 84, 109; Bizen ware, 108; Chokuan Genga, 94–95
donations to museums, 120–121; ware, 111; collectors, 125–126, 140; Genji monogatari. See The Tale of Genji
Japanese, 136; of mingei, 139; of Echizen ware, 47; Eiraku Hozen, 31; ghosts, 104, 107, 134, 151
stencils, 119, 122, 144, 149; travels to Karatsu ware, 22, 138; Kyoto ware, Golden Gate International Exposition, San
Japan, 114–115, 118–119, 121, 127– 128; Mino ware, Oribe-type, 37; Francisco (1939), 116
128, 130; of woodblock prints, 119, Ogata Kenzan, 52; Onda ware, 109; Gonse, Louis, 123, 124, 136, 142
130, 140, 141–142. See also Bigelow, Ōtagaki Rengetsu, 93; Raku, 88; Tanba Gordon, Elizabeth, 16–19, 23, 25–26, 56
William Sturgis; Fenollosa, Ernest ware, 109; Western writers on, 133; gorintō, 75–77, 150
art critics, 139–143 Yatsushiro ware, 108 Gropius, Walter, 13, 14
art dealers: Japanese, 115–116, 139; Cernuschi, Henri (Enrico), 140, 141, 142
Western, 116, 122–124, 130, 140 chanoyu tea ceremony, 75, 137, 150; Hachijō Toshihito, 12
Art Deco, 111 objects used in, 20, 22, 46, 52; wabi- hade, 19, 150
art historians, 143–148 sabi aesthetics, 16, 20, 23, 28, 138, 148 Hamada Shōji, 49, 82
Art Institute of Chicago, 122, 130 chanoyu tea gardens, houses, and rooms, Hamanishi Katsunori, 64
Artistic Japan (Le Japon Artistique), 12, 16, 20, 21, 22, 46, 104, 146 hanami, 96–97, 150
122–123, 140, 142 chōkoku, 81, 150 Harada Jirō, 147–148
Art Nouveau movement, 52, 114, 122 Cleveland Museum of Art, 54, 144 Hart, Ernest, 141
Arts and Crafts movement, 114, 138–139 color, as Japanese design element, 50, Hartmann, Sadakichi, 121–122, 141,
asymmetry, 40, 45, 57, 59, 73, 121; 57, 62, 63, 77, 79, 85, 93, 104, 110; 142–143
examples, 64, 121, 137 Western writers on, 114, 118, 120, 122, Hayashi Tadamasa, 115–116
Audsley, George Ashdown, 115, 115, 149 135, 136, 141 Hearn, Lafcadio, 6, 18, 127, 133, 134
Conder, Josiah, 128–130, 132 Heisenberg, Werner, 42–43
bamboo basketry, 85, 94 Confucianism, 70, 89, 98, 150 Hill, John DeKoven, 18
basara, 36–39, 62–63, 150 crafts. See bijutsu kōgei; dentō kōgei; kōgei; Himes, Sharon, 45
Beato, Felice, 6 mingei Hishikawa Morohira, 96–97
Besinger, Curtis, 18 Cutler, Thomas W., 115, 149 Hobbs, Robert, 18
Bigelow, William Sturgis, 118, 122, 125, Hon’ami Kōetsu, 50
126, 135, 136–137, 144 Daoism (Taoism), 45, 70, 75, 76, 98, honji suijaku, 70, 150
bijutsu, 81, 150 99–101, 150 House Beautiful, 16–19, 23, 25
bijutsu kōgei, 81, 83 dentō kōgei, 81, 150 Huish, Marcus, 123–124, 140
Bing, Siegfried, 122–123, 140, 142 Dow, Arthur Wesley, 121–122, 130, 135, 144
Binyon, Laurence, 143–144 Dresser, Christopher, 127–128 iemoto seidō, 88, 150
bonsai, 86, 150 Drexler, Arthur, 13–14 Iizuka Tōyō, 34
Bothwell, Dorr, 45 Dunn, Michael, 57–58 ikebana, 88, 95, 129, 150
Bowie, Henry Pike, 119–120 Duret, Theodore, 118, 123, 141–142 iki, 19, 25–27, 58, 110
Brinkley, Frank (Captain Francis), 128, imperfection, 16, 20, 23, 59, 61. See also
132–133 ehon, 89, 92, 150 shibui; wabi
British Museum, 58, 143 Eiraku Hozen, 31 industrial design. See kōgyō
Buddhism: aesthetic influences, 73–78; Eri Sayoko, 79 international expositions, 81, 115–116,
altars, 70, 74; esoteric, 74, 76, 98; 127. See also World’s Columbian
festivals, 104; Lotus Sutra, 29; mushin, family crest designs, 34, 38, 55 Exposition
40, 73–74; paradise, 74, 78; sculpture, Fenollosa, Ernest, 125, 127, 134–137; International House of Japan, 10, 11

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 INDEX 159

Ise, Grand Shrine, 71, 132 lacquerware: incense container, 54; See also gardens
Ise monogatari. See The Tales of Ise Iwamura Sadao (attrib.), 111; Okada Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 7, 109, 144
Ishikawa Jōzan, 19 Yoshio, 65; saddle, 32; saké bottle, 57; neo-Nihonga, 37
Ishimoto Yasuhiro, 13 Western appreciation of, 142; writing netsuke, 86, 142, 151
Isozaki Arata, 14, 40–41, 42 boxes, 79, 89; writing table, 43. See Newton, Charles, 149
Itō Jakuchū, 39 also makie Nezu Museum, Tokyo, 73
Iwamura Sadao, 111 La Farge, John, 118–119, 127, 135, 136–137, Nihonga, 37, 119, 120, 135, 151
Izumiya Tomotada, 86 140 nijiri guchi, 21, 151
Lane, Beatrice, 138 Nijō Castle, Kyoto, 97
Japanese Folk Craft Association, 139 Leach, Bernard, 139 Nikko shrine, 132
Japan Folk Crafts Museum (Mingeikan), 139 Lee, O-young, 87 Ningen Kokuhō. See Living National
Japan Society, New York, 52, 57–58 Lee, Sherman E., 54–57 Treasures
Japonisme, 122, 141 Living National Treasures, 81–83, 151 Nishiaki Hisako, 55
Jarves, James Jackson, 121, 139–140 local cultures, 49, 108–110 Nō (Noh) masks, 78, 140
jimi, 19, 150 London International Exposition (1862), Nō (Noh) robes, 35, 145
jingasa, 110, 150 115, 127 Nō (Noh) theater, 40, 41–42, 78, 151
Jinzenji Yoshiko, 22, 62 Lowell, Amy, 127 nōtan, 44–45, 122, 136, 144, 151
Jones, Owen, 115, 127 Lowell, Percival, 125, 126–127, 135
Ōeyama Shuten Dōji, 105
Kabuki theater, 25, 25, 40, 78, 134, 150 ma, 40–43, 150 Ogata Kenzan, 50, 52
kaiga, 81, 150. See also painting machiai, 20, 150 Ogata Kōrin, 50, 51, 51, 52, 142
Kaihō Yūshō, 92–93 Maekawa Kunio, 11 Ogawa Kazumasa, 130, 133
kami, 41, 70, 70, 71–73, 101, 104, 150 makie, 34, 43, 54, 79, 89, 150 Ogawa Ritsuō, 141
Kaminuma Hisako, 85 mandalas (mandara), 69, 74–75, 76 Okada Yoshio, 65
Kamisaka Sekka, 52 Manet, Edouard, 140 Okakura Kakuzō, 23, 26, 118, 120, 130,
Kanaya Gorosaburō III, 99 Manyōshū, 20, 40 132, 134–137, 144
Kaneko, Jun, 42 masks. See Nō masks Okazaki Sessei, 133
Kano Kazunobu, 39 matsuri, 101, 104, 151 Ōkōchi Sansō Villa, 23
Kano School, 102–103 Meech, Julia, 130 Okuma Shigenobu, 123
Karatsu ware, 22, 138 Metropolitan Museum of Art, 52–53, 116, Okura Hotel, Tokyo, 16–17
karesansui, 77, 150 122, 130, 148 Onmyōdō, 98, 151
katagami. See stencils Millet, Josiah, 132, 133 Ōtagaki Rengetsu, 93
Katsukawa Shunshō, 25 mingei, 46–49, 75, 81, 109, 138–139, 138, Ōta Jinnoei, 87
Katsura Imperial Villa, 12–17, 132 146, 151 ōtsue pictures, 47, 98
Katsushika Hokusai, 118, 121, 123, 124, minka, 49
139, 142 Miyake, Issey, 42 pagodas, 75–77
Kawahara Keiga, 124 mono no aware, 20, 77, 78, 151 painting, 89, 120. See also Nihonga; Rinpa art
Kawai Hayao, 40 Mori Masahiro, 11 pilgrimages, 69, 74
Kawai Kanjirō, 49 Morse, Edward Sylvester, 118, 125–126, poetry: haikai (haiku), 138, 142, 150;
Kawai Kanjirō House, 71 127, 130, 134 kyōka, 93, 150; tanka, 142; waka, 20,
Kawanabe Kyōsai, 128 Mukaiyama Kisho, 62 89, 99, 151; Western, 127
Kawase Yoshihito, 64–65 Mukoyoshi Yuboku, 81 Pound, Ezra, 127, 136, 144
kazari, 54–59, 150 Munakata Shikō, 49 purification rituals: in daily life, 98–99;
Kikugawa Eizan, 31 Murasaki Shikibu. See The Tale of Genji sekku, 99–101, 100; Shinto, 71, 72, 72,
Kinkakuji, 12, 147 Murata Shukō, 20 101, 104. See also rituals
Kinoshita Yuri, 104 Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 116, 120–
Kitagawa Utamaro, 24, 27, 92 121, 122, 125–126, 135, 137, 144, 147 qin, 89, 151
Kobori Enshū, 146 Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New quantum physics, 42–43
Kōetsu School, 51 York, 13–14 quilts, 55, 62
kōgei, 81, 150 Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, 15
kōgyō, 81, 111, 126, 150 mushin, 40, 73–74, 151 ranma, 19, 136, 151
Kokusai Bunka Shinkōkai (KBS). See Society Musō Soseki, 126 Rexroth, Kenneth, 142
for International Cultural Relations Rikugien garden, Tokyo, 12, 129
Koren, Leonard, 23 Nagakura Ken’ichi, 61 Rinpa (Rimpa) art, 50–53, 134–135, 136,
Korin School, 51 Nagasawa Rōsetsu, 107 142, 144, 151
kosode, 34, 111, 150 Nakajima Raishō, 100 rituals, 71–72, 98–101, 102–103, 104. See
Kubota Beisen, 119–120 Nakamura Keiboku, 81 also purification rituals
Kuki Ryūichi, 26 nature: abstracted, 65; Buddhist robes: kosode, 34, 111; Nō or Kyōgen, 35,
Kuki Shūzō, 26–27 appreciation of, 78; ecological 145; twelve-layer, 110
Kuma Kengo, 73 problems, 95; Japanese love of, 12, 127, roji, 20, 151
Kumakura Isao, 40 129, 138; kami and, 71–73; materials, rōnin, 36, 105, 151
Kusama Yayoi, 62–63 12, 23, 46, 58, 94, 95, 146; seasons, Ross, Denman Waldo, 120–121, 122,
kuwashii, 150 94–95, 99–101; symbolic imagery, 99. 125–126, 135, 144

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 160 J A PA N E S E D E S I G N

Rousmaniere, Nicole, 58 sumi tsubo, 125, 151 Uchiyama Takeo, 83

Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design, 45 Sumiya banquet hall, Kyoto, 18, 18, 19, Ueno Masao, 85
rusticity, 12, 20, 23, 61. See also mingei; 26, 137 Ukiyo, 25, 78, 151
wabi-sabi aesthetics sumo wrestling, 70 ukiyoe, 27, 78, 88, 148
Ryōanji, Kyoto, 77 Suzuki, D. T., 23, 75, 137–138, 147 Utagawa Hiroshige, 105, 121, 130, 131
Suzuki Kiitsu, 106 Utagawa Kunisada (Utagawa Toyokuni
sabi, 20–23. See also wabi-sabi aesthetics Suzuki Kisei, 107 III), 88
Saihōji, Arashiyama, 126 suzuribako. See writing boxes
Sakaida Kizaemon, 84 sword guards. See tsuba Vantine & Co., 117
Sakai Dōitsu, 98 Victoria and Albert Museum, 116, 127
Sakai Hōitsu, 51, 53 Tagore, Rabindranath, 137 Vienna International Exposition, 81
Sakakura Junzō, 10, 11, 15 Takamura Kōun, 136
saké vessels, 57, 108–110, 108, 109, 128 Takegoshi Jun, 64 wabi, 20–23, 58, 151
Sakiyama Takayuki, 56 Takeno Jōō, 20 wabi-cha, 151. See also chanoyu tea ceremony
samurai, 32–33, 36, 38, 105, 110 Takishita Yoshihiro, 49 wabi-sabi aesthetics, 16, 20, 23, 28, 61,
Schaeffer, Rudolph, 45 The Tale of Genji, 28–29, 87, 90–91, 144 138, 148
Schumacher advertisement, 16 The Tales of Ise, 51 Wakai Kenzaburo, 115–116
sculpture, 70, 75, 81, 140, 142, 144 Tanabe Chikuunsai I, 94 Waley, Arthur, 144
seasons, 94–95, 98–101 Tange Kenzō, 13–14 Warner, Langdon, 7, 73, 109–110, 122,
sekibutsu, 75, 151 Taniguchi Yoshio, 97 139, 144–146, 148
sekku, 99–101, 100, 151 Taniguchi Yoshiro, 16–17 Watanabe Seitei, 68
sencha, 151 Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, 43 Weld, Charles Goddard, 135
sencha tea ceremony, 30, 31, 111 Taoism. See Daoism Wesley, Arthur, 45
Sen no Rikyū, 20 tatami, 77, 124, 151 Whistler, James McNeill, 140
seppuku, 105, 151 Taut, Bruno, 12, 14, 130–132 Whitman, Walt, 142–143
shakkei, 97, 151 Tawaraya Sōtatsu, 50, 51, 52 woodblock prints: collectors, 119, 130, 140,
Shibata Zeshin, 27 tea bowls, 22 141–142; exhibitions, 130; ghost tales
shibui, 16–19, 23, 151 tea caddies, 19 illustrated in, 134; illustrated books, 89;
Shinto, 71–73, 98, 101, 104, 151. See also tea ceremonies. See chanoyu tea of Kamisaka Sekka, 52; of Katsukawa
kami ceremony; sencha tea ceremony Shunshō, 25; of Kikugawa Eizan, 31; of
Shinto shrines, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 101, technological innovation, 83–84, 110–111 Kitagawa Utamaro, 24, 92; mitate, 24,
104, 132 Teisai Hokuba, 57 151; of Munakata Shikō, 49; of Utagawa
shinzō, 70, 151 Tenmyouya Hisashi, 37–39, 39 Hiroshige, 105, 130, 131; of Utagawa
shippō yaki, 85, 151 textiles, 42, 47, 84, 115. See also quilts; Kunisada, 88; by Western artists,
Shisendō, 19 robes 121–122, 130; Western writers on, 130.
Shofuso, 14 theater. See Kabuki theater; Nō theater See also Katsushika Hokusai; ukiyoe
shoga, 51, 151 Thompson, Vance, 143 World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago
shōgon, 78, 151 Tiffany Co., 127 (1893), 114, 116, 130, 133, 135, 136
shoin style, 12, 151. See also sukiya shoin Tōkaidō, 32, 47, 151 World War II, 146
style tokkuri. See saké vessels Wright, Frank Lloyd, 18, 122, 130, 131
shōji, 17, 22, 43, 151 tokonoma, 22, 43, 151 writing boxes (suzuribako), 79, 89
Shokintei Teahouse, 14 Tokugawa regime, 28–30, 36, 132 writing table (bundai), 43
shokunin, 80–81, 151 Tokyo Imperial Museum, 127, 147, 148 writing tools, 89
Shugendō, 98 Tokyo Imperial University, 125, 132, 133,
Siebold, Phillip Franz von, 115, 124–125 134, 136, 144, 148 Yamada Hikaru, 82
soboku, 58, 151 Tokyo National Museum, 52, 146. See also Yamaguchi Yuriko, 63
Society for International Cultural Tokyo Imperial Museum Yamamoto Baiitsu, 30
Relations (Kokusai Bunka Shinkōkai, Tokyo School of Fine Arts (Tokyo Bijutsu Yamanaka Sadajirō, 109, 139
KBS), 116, 132, 138, 147, 148, Gakkō), 135, 137 Yamanaka Shinten’ō, 91
154–156 torii, 73, 151 Yanagi Sōetsu, 18, 23, 46, 49, 138–139,
Sōdeisha, 83 Tosa School, 90–91 144, 146
Sōen Shaku, 137–138 Toyama Memorial Museum, 20 Yanagi Sōri, 11
spatial distortion, 45, 64–65 Toyohara Kunichika, 134 yin and yang, 45, 98
stencils, 45, 50, 119, 122, 123, 144, 149, tsuba, 44, 141, 151 Yoshida Kenkō, 20
150 tsubo niwa, 151 Yoshimura Junzō, 11, 14, 18–19
Sudō Reiko, 84 Tsuda Noritake, 144, 148 yūgen, 41–42, 77–78, 126, 151
Sugimoto Hiroshi, 77 Tsujimura Shirō, 61
suikinkutsu, 20, 151 Tsuji Nobuo, 36, 58 Zeami Motokiyo, 78
suki, 16, 151 tsukubai, 20, 151 Zen Buddhism: aesthetic influences, 43, 58;
sukiya shoin style, 14, 18, 19 tsutsugaki, 47, 55, 151 chanoyu tea ceremony and, 20, 23; Rinzai
sukiya style, 12, 16, 151 Tuer, Andrew, 149 sect, 75; temples and temple gardens, 23,
Sullivan, Louis, 130 Turner-Yamamoto, Shinji, 72 77, 78, 126, 137–138. See also Buddhism

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 Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of The Tuttle Story
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