Книги о восточном искусстве

The ukiyo-e masters are brought together in a volume that illustrates Japan’s “floating world” between the 17th and 19th centuries.

The so-called Edo period (1603–1868) was extremely productive for Japan from a historical and artistic standpoint; later its influence would extend beyond the archipelago, as far as the West, where it gave rise to a real passion for Japanese aesthetics and culture. The term ukiyo-e, which translates as “pictures of a floating world,” refers to the woodblock colour prints that were first created in the Edo period by combining the talents of painters like Utamaro, Hokusai, and Hiroshige with the absolute mastery of block carvers and printers. These prints are the highest aesthetic expression of what could be called a “culture of pleasure,” pervaded by the awareness that the beauties of life must be enjoyed to the full because they are bound to end. The book offers a chance to discover the world of Japanese ukiyo-e prints through over 300 works by some of the most important artists, and the themes that characterize them: from elegant female beauties to delicate flowers and birds, famous kabuki actors, valiant samurai, and even erotic subjects with their insouciant celebration of love.

About the Authors:

Francesco Paolo Campione, author and curator, teaches Cultural Anthropology at the University of Insubria (Como) and is Director of the Museo delle Culture in Lugano.
Marco Fagioli, art historian and critic, has edited many books and essays on Chinese and Japanese painting, shunga and Postimpressionist artists.
Moira Luraschi, anthropologist, is curator of the Oriental collections of the Museo delle Culture in Lugano, for which she has edited several publications on Japanese art.

A retrospective of Yayoi Kusama, Japan's most prominent artist and 'Queen of the Polka Dots'

Avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama’s matchless creativity and originality have been captivating the world since she moved from Matsumoto, her hometown in Nagano, Japan, to the USA in 1958. In the last ten years alone, her retrospective exhibitions in four major European and American museums, including Tate Modern, London, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, have seen record attendance.

Kusama has continuously innovated and re-invented her style. Well-known for her repeating dot patterns, her art encompasses an astonishing variety of media, including painting, drawing, sculpture, film, performance and immersive installation. It ranges from works on paper featuring intense semi-abstract imagery, to soft sculpture known as ‘Accumulations’, to her ‘Infinity Net’ paintings, made up of carefully repeated arcs of paint built up into large patterns. This comprehensive publication, originally published to accompany a sell-out exhibition at Matsumoto City Museum of Art, offers a comprehensive overview of Kusama’s entire career, including works from her youth, when she indulged in drawing in order to escape from her hallucinations; paintings made when she was based in New York, including ‘Infinity Nets’ and ‘Polka Dots’; works from the 1980s and 1990s, when she participated in the Venice Biennale; and last but not least, the ongoing large-scale series ‘My Eternal Soul’. The plates are in chronological order and followed by detailed captions.

About the Authors:

Yayoi Kusama (born 22 March 1929) is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation but is also active in painting, performance, film, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content.
Akira Shibutami is a curator at the Matsumoto City Museum of Art.

In celebration of one of Kusama’s most iconic infinity rooms

A tribute to Yayoi Kusama, the world’s most popular artist, according to The Art Newspaper and The Guardian.

Yayoi Kusama is one of Japan’s most important and famous artists, beloved across multiple generations and different audiences, capable of wonder and amazement. Infinito presente is a tribute to her original and unique art, focusing on Fireflies on the Water one of her most iconic Infinity Mirror Rooms from the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Fireflies on the Water is a room-sized installation where, as the title suggests, the lights seem almost natural, like fireflies on a quiet summer’s night. The pool of water creates an incredible sense of stillness and the mirrors reflect never-ending images of themselves, creating a sidereal ambience. Space appears infinite, without top or bottom, beginning or end. As in Yayoi Kusama’s early installations, including her Infinity Mirror Room (1965), Fireflies on the Water embodies an almost hallucinatory approach to reality. Although linked to the artist’s personal mythology and the process of therapeutic work, this work also references sources as diverse as the myth of Narcissus and Kusama’s native Japanese landscape.

About the Author:

Stefano Raimondi, contemporary art curator, is director of network The Blank Contemporary Art, Italy’s leading network dedicated to the promotion and enhancement of contemporary art and the territory in which it is embedded.

Rising star Charles Fréger brings his inimitable eye to unfamiliar Japanese folk rituals

In rural Japan the passage of the year is marked by festivals and rituals that have changed little for centuries. Elaborate outfits, crafted from textiles as well as branches, straw and elements sourced from the natural environment, are donned in agricultural and fishing communities throughout Japan to celebrate seasonal rites of fertility and abundance.

Yokainoshima (literally ‘island of monsters’) explores the extraordinary range of masks, costumes and characters that reappear with each returning season. Charles Fréger’s photographs combine acute documentary attentiveness with individual portraiture in an entirely fresh and distinctive style.

Toshiharu Ito and Akihiro Hatanaka, both specialists in Japanese folk culture and anthropology, analyse Fréger’s photographs, setting the huge variety of eclectic clothing in ethnographic context and describing the local festivals, dances and rituals. A final illustrated reference section describes individual costumes and masks.

About the Author:

Charles Fréger is a photographer based in Rouen, France. Internationally acclaimed for his subtle and poetic portraiture, he has devoted himself to the representation of social groups. Previous books include Wilder Mann and Portraits in Lace.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) was the last great woodblock print master of the Ukiyo-e tradition. With his distinctive style of dramatic lines and use of gorgeous colours, Yoshitoshi was soon recognised by his contemporaries as the most outstanding woodblock artist of his time. One Hundred Aspects of the Moon is regarded as his greatest achievement. The series brings to life the history and mythology of ancient Japan. In all 100 prints the moon figures prominently, either clearly visible in the design itself, or else referred to in the beautiful poem in the text cartouche. The subjects of the prints range from historical figures such as the novelist and court lady Murasaki Shikibu from the Heian period (794-1185) and samurai warlords like Takeda Shingen (1521-1573) to mythological creatures and scenes related to the Japanese theatre forms kabuki, no and kyogen. The series not only strongly refers to Japanese literature and culture, it also includes many references to the literary traditions of China, which were of major influence on the cultural developments of classical Japan.

About the Editor:

Bas Verberk, a Japan curator of the Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne, offers clear descriptions with new insights and knowledge about this popular series, now first presented in a non-Japanese publication.

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) is one of the best-known of all Japanese woodblock print designers. He is particularly renowned for his landscape prints, which are among the most frequently reproduced of all Japanese works of art. Hiroshige’s landscape prints were hugely successful both in Japan and in the West. Their unusual compositions, humorous depictions of people involved in everyday activities and masterly expression of weather, light and seasons, proved enormously influential on many leading European artists. Aimed at a general audience, this book illustrates and discusses 53 Hiroshige landscape prints in the Ashmolean Museum’s collection and explores their historical background. It gives a concise introduction to Hiroshige’s life and career within the context of Japan’s booming nineteenth-century woodblock print industry and explores the development of the landscape print as a new genre in this period. It also discusses and illustrates the process and techniques of traditional Japanese woodblock print-making.

Contents:
How to ‘read’ a Japanese Print, Preface, Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) Woodblock Print Designer, Making a Japanese Woodblock Print, I Views along the Tokaido, II Views of the Provinces, III Views of Edo, IV Views of Mount Fuji, Further Reading.

About the Authors:

Clare Pollard is Curator of Japanese Art at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. Mitsuko Ito Watanabe is Assistant Director at the Oxford Centre for Asian Archaeology, Art and Culture and Research Associate in the Ashmolean Museum's Department of Eastern Art.

Hiroshige: Nature and the City is the most extensive overview of the career of the famed Japanese print artist, Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) in the English language to date. It is based on the largest collection of Hiroshige in private hands outside Japan, the Alan Medaugh collection.

The catalogue consists of 500 entries, with an emphasis on urban and rural landscapes, fan prints and prints of birds and flowers. Grouped chronologically by subject it presents Hiroshige’s interpretation of the urban scenes from his hometown Edo (present-day Tokyo), the great series documenting travel along the famous highways of Japan, and the idylls of nature as represented in his bird-andflower prints.

Hiroshige often incorporated poetry in his works and for the first time all textual content is transcribed and translated. Additionally, the catalogue pays due attention to the differences between variant editions of his prints. Thus, it provides essential comparative material for every scholar, dealer, and collector.

Five essays precede the catalogue section, each written by specialists in the field. Rhiannon Paget (Curator of Asian Art at The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art) provides a general introduction to Hiroshige’s life and career. Andreas Marks (Curator Minneapolis Museum of Art) contributes two essays: on the publishers of Hiroshige’s prints and on Hiroshige’s collaborative works designed with his colleagues. Shiho Sasaki (conservation specialist at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco) discusses the pigment use in Hiroshige’s prints while John Carpenter (Curator of Japanese Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art) investigates the source of the poetry of Hiroshige bird-and-flower prints.

About the Author:

John Carpenter is Curator of Japanese Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he has worked since the summer of 2011. From 1999 to 2009 he taught the history of Japanese art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and served as Head of the London Office of the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures. He has also taught courses at the University of Heidelberg. From 2009 to 2011 he was Visiting Professor at the University of Tokyo. He has published widely on Japanese art, especially in the areas of calligraphy, painting, and woodblock prints. Among his recent publications is a catalogue of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, Designing Nature: The Rinpa Aesthetic in Japanese Art (2012).

A fascinating and comprehensive reference album of Hiroshige, the last great figure of the ukiyo-e style.

The great artist of the Japanese popular school of printmaking, Hiroshige (1797-1858) transmuted everyday landscapes into intimate, lyrical scenes. With Hokusai, he dominated the popular art of Japan in the first half of the nineteenth century. He captured, in a poetic, gentle way that all could understand, the ordinary person’s experience of the Japanese landscape as well varied moods of memorable places at different times. His total output was immense, some 5400 prints in all. Ukiyo-e publishing was not a cultural institution subsidized by public funds, but rather a commercial business. During his lifetime, Hiroshige was well known and commercially successful. But the Japanese society did not take 100 much notice of him. His real reputation started with his discovery in Europe.

- This beautiful book, published on the occasion of a major exhibition in Rome, examines various aspects of Hiroshige's oeuvre and reproduces in colour some two hundred of his prints.
- The comprehensive text examines his life and achievement as well as his masterworks and explains the particular qualities that make Hiroshige such an essential artist.

About the Author:

Gian Carlo Calza is Professor of East Asian Art History at the University of Venice. He has published many books, exhibition catalogues and articles.

A stylish three-volume boxed set of Katsushika Hokusai’s renowned manga drawings considered a precursor of contemporary manga

In 1814, the great Japanese artist and printmaker Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) published the first volume of a handbook of his sketches: Hokusai Manga. Originally designed as a reference for his students to emulate, it surpassed all expectations and became a bestseller, eventually expanding to 15 volumes and over 4,000 images.

This three-volume edition is an extensive selection of Hokusai’s sketches, which present all the themes, motifs and techniques found in his art. Although they are not based around an ongoing narrative, the caricatures, satirical drawings and multi-panel illustrations can clearly be seen as a forerunner of manga as it is understood today.

Volume 1 explores Edo Life, the everyday world of the city that would later become Tokyo, featuring people from all walks of life at work and at play. Volume 2 is devoted to The Wonders of Nature, including animals, birds and fish as well as landscapes, weather and scenes of natural beauty. Finally, volume 3, Flights of Fancy, is packed with mythical creatures, supernatural beings and all sorts of weird and wonderful imagery from the master’s imagination. This collection has enchanted and inspired artists and art-lovers for two centuries and is now ripe for rediscovery.

Contents List:

Volume 1: The Life and Manners of the Day • Volume 2: The Whole Earth Catalogue Volume 3: Fanciful, Mythical and Supernatural

About the Author:

Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, which includes the iconic print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa.

The authoritative and wide-ranging visual essay on the aesthetics of Japan, a classic volume now back in print with a stunning new cover design

‘Japan style’ is an aesthetic recognizable to everyone: a beautifully displayed flower, an elegant piece of calligraphy, or a simple rock garden, yet it is also difficult to define.

Written by one of the world’s most respected scholars of Japanese art and culture, this book does just that. Illustrated with over 150 stunning images that unlock the essence of Japanese art and culture, alongside Gian Carlo Calza’s groundbreaking and insightful text, Japan Style explores specific achievements in Japanese art and architecture and offers an in-depth analysis of the whole of Japanese culture, its vision of the world and of humankind.

About the Author:

Gian Carlo Calza is an academic researching on Asian cultures and arts and their interplay with the West. He is a leading authority in Japanese art and aesthetics, author of many books, and curator of many exhibitions in the field.

He was a professor of Asian Art History at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and director of the International Hokusai Research Centre in Milan. Among the most important of his books are: Tanaka Ikko, Hokusai, Ukiyo-e, and Poem of the Pillow and Other Stories, all of which were published in English by Phaidon.

Contents and sections:
Irregular Beauty
 - Japan Style
 - Tea and the Aesthetics of the Undefined
 - Images of Emptiness
 - The Seductiveness of Impermanence
 - Eccentric? No, Extraordinary
 - The Secret Message of No
 - Tears of the Mask
 - The Colours of Darkness
 - interlude: Small but Great
The Feeling of Nature
 - The Harmony of Things
 - An Intimate Perception of Reality
 - The Dragon in Tranquillity
 - Nature's Magnificence
 - Nature and Beauty in the Floating World
 - Interlude: Eating with the Eyes
Masters of Art
 - Zeami: The Flower in the Demon
 - Hokusai: The Old Man Mad about Painting
 - Kawabata: The Power of the Ethereal
 - Mishima: When Will You Kill Yourself, Master?
 - Ikko: A Flash of Light
Glossary
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index

Japanese woodblock prints of the Edo period (1615–1868) were the products of a highly commercialised and competitive publishing industry. Their content was inspired by the vibrant popular culture that flourished in Edo (Tokyo). At any given time scores of publishers competed for the services of the leading artists of the day. Publishers and artists displayed tremendous ingenuity in finding ways to sustain demand for prints and to circumvent the restrictions placed upon them by government censorship. Japanese woodblock prints have long been appreciated in the West for their graphic qualities but their content has not always been fully understood. 

In recent years, publications by scholars in Japan, Europe and the United States have made possible a more subtle appreciation of the imagery encountered in them. This book draws upon this recent scholarship to explain how those who first purchased these prints would have read them. Through stunning new photography of both well-known and rarely published works in the collection of the British Museum, including many recent acquisitions, the author explores how and why such prints were made, providing a fascinating introduction to a much-loved but little-understood art form.

A goblin with no body and a monster with no face. A resourceful samurai and a faithful daughter. A spirit of the moon and a dragon king.

This collection of 15 traditional Japanese folktales transports readers to a time of adventure and enchantment. Drawn from the works of folklorists Lafcadio Hearn and Yei Theodora Ozaki, these tales are by turns terrifying, exhilarating, and poetic.

- Striking illustrations by contemporary Japanese artist Kotaro Chiba
- Special gift edition features an embossed, textured case with metallic gold ink, and a satin ribbon page marker

Fans of Celtic Tales, Ghostly Tales, and Japanese Notebooks will love this book.

This book is ideal for:

- Fans of fairytales, folklore, or ghost stories
- Anyone interested in Japan’s history and culture
- People of Japanese heritage
- Collectors of illustrated classics

About the Author:

Kotaro Chiba is an illustrator based in Niigata, Japan.

The perfect introduction to the world of Japanese myth and legend

This is a smart and succinct guide to the rich tradition of Japanese mythology, from the earliest recorded legends of Izanagi and Izanami, their divine offspring and the creation of Japan, to medieval tales of vengeful ghosts, through to the modern-day reincarnation of ancient deities as the heroes of mecha anime. While many around the world love Japan’s cultural exports, few are familiar with Japan’s unique mythology - enriched by Shinto, Buddhism and regional folklore.

Mythology remains a living, evolving part of Japanese society, and the ways in which the people of Japan understand their myths are very different today even from a century ago, let alone over a millennium into the past. Offering much more than any competing overview of Japanese mythology, The Japanese Myths not only retells the ancient stories but also considers their place within the patterns of Japanese religions, culture and history, helping readers to understand the deep links between past and present in Japan, and the ways these myths live and grow.

Joshua Frydman takes the very earliest written myths in the Kojiki and the Nihonshoki as his starting point, and from there traces Japan’s mythology through to post-war State Shinto, the rise of the manga industry in the 1960s, J-horror and modern-day myths. Reinventions and retellings of myth are present across all genres of contemporary Japanese culture, from its auteur cinema to renowned video games such as Okami. This book is for anyone interested in Japan, as knowing its myths allows readers to understand and appreciate its culture in a new light.

Contents List:

Introduction
1. What are the Japanese Myths?
2. Age of the Gods
3. The Imperial Mythos
4. Living Kami and Divine Humans
5. Canon Foreigners
6. A World Flush with Spirits
7. Invention and Rediscovery

About the Author:

Joshua Frydman is Assistant Professor of Japanese in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Linguistics at the University of Oklahoma. An expert on ancient Japan, his academic interests include the development of writing systems (in East Asia and worldwide), and the role of transregional and global cultural interactions in the development of premodern societies as viewed through literature and art. He is also the author of Inscribed Objects and the Development of Literature in Early Japan.

A beautiful facsimile edition of the last masterpiece of ukiyo-e

Yoshitoshi (1839 - 1892) was the last virtuoso of the Japanese woodblock print, and the One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, published between 1885 and 1892, were his crowning achievement. This series, mainly illustrating stories from history and legend, unified by the motif of the moon, is charged with paradox. In order to carry forward the tradition of ukiyo-e, Yoshitoshi drew stylistic inspiration from the very forces that were rendering it obsolete, namely Western art and mass media like photography and lithography. As if they realized they were witnessing the end of an era, the artist's public responded enthusiastically to his innovative series, many of the individual prints were sold out on the morning of their publication.

This magnificent facsimile of One Hundred Aspects of the Moon reproduces each print at its original size, facing an explanation of the subject. A thorough introductory text, augmented with many comparative illustrations, traces Yoshitoshi's career and the genesis of this series. Printed and bound to the most exacting specifications, this volume will be a must for aficionados of Japanese prints.

About the Author:

John Stevenson studied modern history at Oxford and worked and travelled across Asia for twenty years. He has written books and articles on various aspects of Asian art, from Japanese prints to Vietnamese ceramics. Formerly curator of Chinese art at the Seattle Art Museum and production manager at the University of Washington Press, Stevenson now lives on Kyushu Island, Japan.

Paying tribute to a century of one of the world’s most popular and enduring genres, 100 Years of Anime follows the beloved medium from its earliest beginnings to its current blockbuster success. Learn all about the technological inventions and artistic genius that shaped the genre in this authoritative account of anime, illustrated with stunning full-color stills. Revisit much-loved series, including Dragon Ball, Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Pokémon, and Studio Ghibli films — and discover new favorites — in this complete guide!

_Pore over full-color stills that showcase how changing technology, culture, and artistic innovation have influenced and enhanced the narrative themes and aesthetics of the genre.
_This book features popular anime titles including Dragon Ball, Akira, Pokémon, Cowboy Bebop, and Studio Ghibli films, as well as more niche works that helped define the genre.
_Celebrating a century of success, this title covers the earliest days of the genre to contemporary examples and explores all the evolutionary steps in between.

About the Authors:

Matthieu Pinon is a former maths and physics teacher who has been writing about Japanese pop culture in magazines since 1998. He is the co-author of A History of Modern Manga, published by Insight in 2023. He enjoys presenting facets of Japanese life to the wider world to help others understand the customs of a country they may be unfamiliar with.

Philippe Bunel is credited as a contributor to a book about the Studio Ghibli founder, Hayao Miyazaki, Shades of a Work.