Japanese Art in Perspective

How do Japanese and Western aesthetics differ? In this comparative cultural study, Takashina Shūji, a leading scholar of Western art history and insightful commentator on Japanese art, compares the two artistic traditions to reveal the distinctive characteristics of the Japanese sense of beauty.

The first section, Methods of Japanese Art, uses examples and cross-cultural comparisons to elucidate the techniques by which Japanese artists cultivated their unique approach. These include roving rather than fixed perspective, the “aesthetic of negation”—excising the unnecessary to emphasize what remains—and the “trailing bough” motif, which evokes a world beyond the work’s borders and influenced Western artists such as Monet.

In the second section, East-West Encounters, Takashina examines the history of cultural interaction between Japan and the West from the early modern period on and its influence on the art of both. The third section, Passing Beauty, Returning Memory, contains essays on Japanese culture more broadly, including its preference for recurring forms over fixed monuments and its tradition of combining multiple seasons in a single image.

Japanese Art in Perspective is a guide not only to the art of Japan but to the essence of its spiritual culture.

TAKASHINA Shūji
Takashina Shūji is an art historian, art critic, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, director of theOhara Museum of Art, and president of the Japan Art Academy. Born 1932, he graduated from the University of Tokyo’s College of Arts and Sciences and went on to study modern Western art history at the Sorbonne and the École du Louvre. His previously held positions include professor at the University of Tokyo and director general of the National Museum of Western Art. He received the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon in 2000, was named Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor in 2001, and was awarded the Japan Art Academy Prize and Imperial Prize from the Japan Art Academy in 2002. He was recognized by the Japanese government as a Person of Cultural Merit in 2005, and inducted into the Order of Culture in 2012. In 2015, he was appointed to the Japan Art Academy, and in 2020 he was made academy president.

Other books by Takashina include, in English, The Japanese Sense of Beauty ( JPIC) and, in Japanese, Seikimatsu geijutsu (Fin-de-siècle Art, Chikuma Gakugei Bunko), Runessansu no hikari to yami (Light and Dark in the Renaissance, Chūkō Bunko), Nihon kindai bijutsushi-ron (A History of Modern Art in Japan, Chikuma Gakugei Bunko), Kindai kaigaishi: Goya kara Mondorian made (A History of Modern Painting: From Goya to Mondrian, Chūkō Shinsho, in two volumes), Pikaso: Hyōsetsu no ronri (Picasso: The Logic of Plagiarism, Chikuma Gakugei Bunko), 20 seiki bijutsu (20th-Century Art, Chikuma Gakugei Bunko), Seiyō no me, Nihon no me (The Western Eye, the Japanese Eye, Seidosha), and Miro no Viinasu wa naze kessaku ka? (Why Is the Venus de Milo a Masterpiece?, Shōgakukan).

*information as of time of publication

Japan Library series
Art & Design

Publisher:
Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture

Hardcover
¥2,400 + tax
ISBN 9784866581804
210 mm x 148 mm / 200 pp. / March 2021

eBook
ISBN 9784866581927 (ePub)
ISBN 9784866582030 (PDF)

CONTENTS
Preface to the English Edition
Part I: Methods of Japanese Art
1. The Character of Japanese Aesthetics / 2. Object and Form / 3. Forms of Seeing, East and West / 4. The “Trailing Bough” Motif / 5. The Art of the Journey / 6. The Principle of Ornamentation
Part II: East–West Encounters
7. East and West in Meiji Painting / 8. The Avant-Garde in Japanese Art / 9. Japanese Academism / 10. Some Problems of Japonisme
Part III: Passing Beauty, Returning Memory
11. The Aesthetics of Transition: The Four Seasons and the Japanese Sense of Beauty / 12. “The Color of the Flowers”: Symphonies of Image and Word / 13. The Heritage of Memory: Intangible Culture as Japanese Tradition
Afterword
Afterword to the Expanded Edition
Original Publication Details

"The English translator has done a wonderful job of reproducing the conciseness and the persuasiveness of Takashina's original. What I am especially fond of about the translated version is the coloured paintings featured at the beginning of the book, which can allow the reader to better appreciate the pictures while enjoying the Takashina's superb analyses. Japanese Art in Perspective: East-West Encounters is recommended not only for experts in Japanese art but also for anyone keen to learn more about fine art."

James Au Kin-Pong, December 16, 2021

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西洋美術史の第一人者で日本美術にも確かな知見をもつ著者が、西洋と日本の美術を比較し日本人の美意識の特質を明らかにする比較文化論。近代における西洋と日本の文化交流が互いの美術にもたらした影響にも言及する。

高階秀爾
1932年、東京生まれ。東京大学教養学部卒業。1954―59年にフランス政府招聘留学生として渡仏。東京大学教授、国立西洋美術館館長を経て、現在は倉敷の大原美術館館長。専門はルネサンス以降の西洋美術史であるが、日本美術についての造詣もたいへん深く、多くの著書がある。『ルネッサンスの光と闇』（芸術選奨文部大臣賞）、『日本近代美術史論』、『ゴッホの眼』、『フランス絵画史』、『ピカソ剽窃の論理』、『20世紀美術』、『近代絵画史』（上下）、『芸術のパトロンたち』などの多くの著書がある。またウィント、ケネス・クラークなどの翻訳により、美術の啓蒙に尽力している。

＊著者略歴は書籍刊行時のものを表示しています。