The Art and Architecture of Japan

The Art and Architecture of Japan

Author: Robert Treat Paine

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1981-01-01

Total Pages: 530

ISBN-13: 9780300053333

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Once slighted as mere copying from China, the arts of Japan are now seen as a unique alternation of advances and withdrawals. At times the islanders produced Chinese-style works of great beauty, unmatched on the continent. When they chose to be independent, their art differs at every level. Sculpture, and even more painting, are concrete, sensuous, and emotional, speaking directly to all.


On Understanding Japanese Religion

On Understanding Japanese Religion

Author: Joseph Mitsuo Kitagawa

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-02-09

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 0691224234

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Joseph Kitagawa, one of the founders of the field of history of religions and an eminent scholar of the religions of Japan, published his classic book Religion in Japanese History in 1966. Since then, he has written a number of extremely influential essays that illustrate approaches to the study of Japanese religious phenomena. To date, these essays have remained scattered in various scholarly journals. This book makes available nineteen of these articles, important contributions to our understanding of Japan's intricate combination of indigenous Shinto, Confucianism, Taoism, the Yin-Yang School, Buddhism, and folk religion. In sections on prehistory, the historic development of Japanese religion, the Shinto tradition, the Buddhist tradition, and the modem phase of the Japanese religious tradition, the author develops a number of valuable methodological approaches. The volume also includes an appendix on Buddhism in America. Asserting that the study of Japanese religion is more than an umbrella term covering investigations of separate traditions, Professor Kitagawa approaches the subject from an interdisciplinary standpoint. Skillfully combining political, cultural, and social history, he depicts a Japan that seems a microcosm of the religious experience of humankind.


Arts of Japan

Arts of Japan

Author: Hugo Munsterberg

Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

Published: 2012-10-10

Total Pages: 461

ISBN-13: 1462908853

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Arts of Japan is a classic and informative text that explores the rich cultural heritage and history of Japanese Art. This art history text examines the various influences that have shaped the course of Japanese art history in the fields of painting, sculpture, architecture, and handicrafts. Discussed with challenging insight are the impact of the various Indian and Chinese schools, the pervasive influence of Zen philosophy, and the many other artistic developments, giving the reader a well-rounded picture of the great significance and contribution of Japanese art. Special features of the book are sections on handicrafts and a chapter on prehistoric art. The book comes at a time when there is an awakened interest in Asian art throughout the world. In the past, due to linguistic barriers, political upheavals, and the limited number of specialists, misconceptions have been especially numerous in the field of Japanese art. The Arts of Japan admirably corrects these misinterpretations, consolidates the results of the most recent scholarship, and in one compact volume presents an up-to-date, authoritative survey of Japanese and throughout its long history and in all its colorful diversity.


Artist and Patron in Postwar Japan

Artist and Patron in Postwar Japan

Author: Thomas R.H. Havens

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-07-14

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 140085539X

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This work explains how and why Japan supports a community of professional dancers, musicians, production companies, and visual artists that has nearly tripled in size during the past 25 years. Originally published in 1982. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


Reading Asian Art and Artifacts

Reading Asian Art and Artifacts

Author: Paul Kocot Nietupski

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1611460700

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Asian art and material artifacts are expressive of cultural realities and constitute a "visible language" with messages that can be read, interpreted, and analyzed. These essays by scholars of Asian art, philosophy, anthropology, and religion focus on objects held in ASIANetwork schools. The chapters' authors tell the stories of the collections, and the collections themselves tell stories of the collectors.


Folk Arts of Japan

Folk Arts of Japan

Author: Hugo Munsterberg

Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

Published: 2012-10-09

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 146290887X

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With dozens of lovely photographs and insightful commentary, The Folk Arts of Japan deals with a rediscovered branch of Japanese art. Although these folkcraft creations have their roots in the country's ancient and colorful art tradition, their unassuming grace makes them unmistakably in harmony with modern functional design. The author, Dr. Munsterberg brings to his work the fruits of four years of study in Japan and a deep knowledge of Asian culture, making available for the first time in English a comprehensive guide and commentary on this significant branch of Japan's varied arts.


Japan Before Perry

Japan Before Perry

Author: Conrad Totman

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2008-01-14

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 0520254074

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By 1853 Japan had been transformed from a sparsely populated land of nonliterate tribal peoples into an elaborately structured commercial society sustaining massive cities and a varied array of sophisticated cultural production. In this authoritative survey, Conrad Totman examines the origins of Japanese civilization and explores in detail the classical, medieval, and early-modern epochs, weaving interpretations of the major themes in Japan's cultural and political development into a rich historical narrative.


The Shaman

The Shaman

Author: John A. Grim

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780806121062

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Tribal peoples believe that the shaman experiences, absorbs, and communicates a special mode of power, sustaining and healing. This book discusses American Indian shamanic traditions, particularly those of the Woodland Ojibway, in terms drawn from the classical shamanism of Siberian peoples. Using a cultural-historical method, John A. Grim describes the spiritual formation of shamans, male and female, and elucidates the special religious experience that they transmit to their tribes. Writing as a historian of religion well acquainted with ethnological materials, Grim identifies four patterns in the shamanic experience: cosmology, tribal sanction, ritual reenactment, and trance experience. Relating those concepts to the Siberian and Ojibway experiences, he draws on mythology, sociology, anthropology, and psychology to paint a picture of shamanism that is both particularized and interpretative. As religious personalities, shamans are important today because of their singular ability to express symbolically the forces that animate the tribal cosmology. Often identifying themselves with primordial earth processes, shamans develop symbol systems drawn from the archetypal earth images that are vital to their psychic healing technique. This particular ability to resonate with the natural world is felt as an important need in our time. Those readers who identify with American Indians as they confront modern technological society will value this introduction to our native shamanic traditions and to the religious experience itself. The author's discussion of Ojibway practices is the most comprehensive short treatment available, written with a fine poetic feeling that reflects the literary expressiveness inherent in American Indian religion and thought.