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Kawase Hasui's Masterpieces
Following on the success of the catalogue raisonné – Kawase Hasui: The Complete Woodblock Prints – published by Hotei Publishing in 2003, Visions of Japan: Kawase Hasui’s Masterpieces brings together in a single volume one hundred of the artist’s most celebrated prints. Fully illustrated, this publication includes annotated descriptions for each work, as well as two essays on Hasui’s life and work by Dr. Kendall H. Brown.
Kawase Hasui (1883-1957) is considered the foremost Japanese landscape print artist of the 20th century, and he is most closely associated with the pioneering Shin-hanga ('New Prints') publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō (1885-1962). Hasui’s work became hugely popular, not only in his native Japan but also in the West, especially in the United States. His valuable contribution to the woodblock print medium was acknowledged in 1956, a year before his death, when he was honoured with the distinction of ‘Living National Treasure’.
A Multidisciplinary Perspective
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Re-envisioning Śiva Naṭarāja. A Multidisciplinary Perspective offers new insights into the dancing Śiva as icon and concept. Each of the seven essays in this volume addresses an aspect of the Naṭarāja (a specific form of the dancing Śiva) that has been until now untouched by scholars, or one for which the research is here moved substantially forward. Through the use of hitherto unexplored materials - murals, prints, icons, Sanskrit iconographic and ritual texts, Tamil inscriptions, and the analysis of metal alloys and casting techniques - old views are checked and challenged, and new ideas are proposed. Combining a wide range of fields of expertise, the volume will add to our knowledge about this well-studied, but poorly understood icon. With contributions by Anna A. Ślączka, Anna L. Dallapiccola, Nicolas Cane, Leslie C. Orr, Richard H. Davis, Sharada Srinivasan, Libbie Mills, Corinna Wessels-Mevissen.
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Printed and Painted: The Meiji Art of Ogata Gekkō (1859–1920) is the first English-language publication to offer an in-depth look at the life and career of the Japanese painter and woodblock-print designer Ogata Gekkō. This publication brings together 140 prints and paintings by Gekkō, his students and his contemporaries such as Kawanabe Kyōsai, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi and Yōshū Chikanobu across five subject areas: history and legend; pictures of beautiful women; the natural world, rural and city views; literature and theatre; and modern wars and modern soldiers. The extensive introduction brings to life the character and art of Gekkō, including a translation of a personal account by his accomplished student, the shin-hanga (New Print) artist Yamamura Kōka. An artist often overlooked in discussions of the art of the Meiji period (1868–1912), the publication seeks to highlight the vibrant printed and painted world of the era.
300 Years of Japanese Design
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The Kimono in Print: 300 Years of Japanese Design is the first publication dedicated to the examination of the kimono as a major source of inspiration and experimentation in Japanese print culture from the widely circulated woodblock prints and illustrated books of the Edo period (1603–1868) to the modern design books of the Meiji period (1868–1912). Print and book designers from these eras, such as Hishikawa Moronobu and Kamisaka Sekka, profoundly shaped the ever-evolving trends in material culture and fashion, including the popularization of certain styles of dress and even the creation of kimono designs. Five essays by the leading art and social historians Nagasaki Iwao, Ellis Tinios, Matsuba Ryōko, Fujita Kayoko, and Stephanie Su and a catalogue of about seventy works off er insight into the intersection of the worlds of the Japanese print and kimono as well as their social, cultural, and global import.
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Dharma and Puṇya: Buddhist Ritual Art of Nepal explores the centrality of ritual practices and the agency of people – patrons, ritual specialists, devotees – in creating and amplifying the efficacy of Buddhist art. Jinah Kim and Todd Lewis highlight the unparalleled contributions of Nepal’s artisans, patrons, and ritualists in engendering artistic heritage that is an endearing continuation of Indic Buddhist traditions. The publication presents paintings, illuminated texts, statues, and ritual implements from the Newar tradition in the Kathmandu Valley. Richly illustrated with photographs of contemporary rituals, religious observances, and historical examples, the essays provide cultural, historical and ritual contexts in which objects collected in art museums were used, and animate them. By recentering the historical imagination on communities, their rituals, and popular narrative traditions, Dharma and Puṇya challenges prevailing misconceptions about Buddhism in the West and expand our understanding of Buddhism as a lived world religion. Contributors include: Naresh Bajracharya, Louis Coppleston, Sonali Dhingra, James Giambrone, Jinah Kim, Todd Lewis, Bruce McCoy Owens, Alexander von Rospatt and Sumon Tuladhar.
Tanaka Ryōhei. Etchings of Rural Japan is the first monograph in English dedicated to the life and oeuvre of Tanaka Ryōhei (1933). Mostly self-taught, Tanaka excelled in the medium of etching. He used this technique to depict the scenery of rural Japan and its gradually disappearing thatched-roof farmhouses. Tanaka made no less than 770 etchings and printed the vast majority of the editions himself – a total of well over 100,000 prints, which found their way to many collections, both public and private, all over the world. Over 130 representative works have been selected for this publication. Japan has a long and rich tradition of printmaking. Whereas 18th- to early 20th-century woodblock prints have been the subject of extensive research, postwar printmaking and etching in Japan have received considerably less attention. While focusing on a single artist, this publication aims to shed light on these lesser-known aspects of Japanese print history. Tanaka Ryōhei, Etchings of Rural Japan includes an elaborate introduction to the technique of etching, enabling the reader to understand and admire Tanaka’s skills as an artist-craftsman.
Yoshijiro Urushibara: A Japanese printmaker in London is a catalogue raisonné of the work of Yoshijiro Urushibara (1889–1953), a Japanese artist and craftsman who lived and worked in London from 1910 to 1940. During his thirty years in Europe, Urushibara produced a considerable number of prints and played a major role in encouraging the production and appreciation of the colour woodcut in the Japanese manner, especially in Britain. Throughout his career Urushibara contributed to cross-cultural interactivity, collaborating with several European artists. His most famous and successful collaboration was with the British artist Frank Brangwyn (1867-1956).
The authors had unique access to the artist’s family archive in Tokyo and recorded and evaluated the extent of Urushibara’s print production. With fully researched catalogue entries, full-colour illustrations, and illuminating biographical and contextual essays, this publication – the first of its kind in the English language - provides a comprehensive account of Urushibara’s life and oeuvre.