Playthings and Pastimes in Japanese Prints
Playthings and Pastimes in Japanese Prints

Author: Lea Baten

Publisher: Weatherhill, Incorporated

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13:

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Political scientists and public administration scholars have long recognized that innovation in public agencies is contingent on entrepreneurial bureaucratic executives. But unlike their commercial counterparts, public administration "entrepreneurs" do not profit from their innovations. What motivates enterprising public executives? How are they created? Manuel P. Teodoro's theory of bureaucratic executive ambition explains why pioneering leaders aren not the result of serendipity, but rather arise out of predictable institutional design. Teodoro explains the systems that foster or frustrate entrepreneurship among public executives. Through case studies and quantitative analysis of original data, he shows how psychological motives and career opportunities shape administrators' decisions, and he reveals the consequences these choices have for innovation and democratic governance. Tracing the career paths and political behavior of agency executives, Teodoro finds that, when advancement involves moving across agencies, ambitious bureaucrats have strong incentives for entrepreneurship. Where career advancement occurs vertically within a single organization, ambitious bureaucrats have less incentive for innovation, but perhaps greater accountability. This research introduces valuable empirical methods and has already generated additional studies. A powerful argument for the art of the possible, Bureaucratic Ambition advances a flexible theory of politics and public administration. Its lessons will enrich debate among scholars and inform policymakers and career administrators.

Bamboo in Japan
Bamboo in Japan

Author: Nancy Moore Bess

Publisher: Kodansha International

Published: 2001-05-18

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 9784770025104

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This is a fully illustrated guide to the art, craft and design of bamboo, as demonstrated by the Japanese. It demonstrates how to use inexpensive materials to create sophisticated effects in the home and garden. A list of bamboo collections, gardens and research sources is included. For centuries, bamboo has fascinated legions of craftspeople, plant lovers and devotees of the handcrafted object. And nowhere is bamboo used more elegantly and distinctly than in Japan. Its presence touches every part of daily life-art, crafts, design, literature, and food. Its beauty

Japanese Kite Prints
Japanese Kite Prints

Author: John Stevenson

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13:

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Color woodblock prints vibrantly convey the popular urban culture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Edo, now called Tokyo. In a book that brings together two of Edo's most colorful traditions, prints and kites, John Stevenson celebrates the charm and significance of the mass-produced but often elegant broadsheets known as ukiyo-e. The term means "pictures of the floating world," a pun on a Buddhist concept of the fleeting world of desires that is, coincidentally but poetically, appropriate for a study of kites borne on the wind. Edo artists experimented with woodblock-printing techniques during the eighteenth century as kite-flying became increasingly popular. Each influenced the other: kite-makers copied woodblock-print designs to decorate their creations of bamboo, cloth, and paper, and printers used images of kites in their designs. The prints from the Skinner Collection illustrated in this book are products of Tokugawa Edo (1603-1867) and Meiji Tokyo (1868-1912). They record highlights of the Kabuki theater, brothels, and Sumo wrestling, enthusiastically presenting star actors and celebrity courtesans and vignettes of everyday life. These images capture for us the character of life as it was lived and imagined by the printmakers and kite-fliers of Old Japan. It seems that everyone thrills to the sight of a kite straining upward into the sky, and woodblock prints are perhaps the most accessible form of traditional Japanese visual culture; kite aficionados and lovers of Japanese art alike will be delighted by this study.

Asian Comics
Asian Comics

Author: John A. Lent

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2015-01-05

Total Pages: 907

ISBN-13: 1626742944

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Grand in its scope, Asian Comics dispels the myth that, outside of Japan, the continent is nearly devoid of comic strips and comic books. Relying on his fifty years of Asian mass communication and comic art research, during which he traveled to Asia at least seventy-eight times and visited many studios and workplaces, John A. Lent shows that nearly every country had a golden age of cartooning and has experienced a recent rejuvenation of the art form. As only Japanese comics output has received close and by now voluminous scrutiny, Asian Comics tells the story of the major comics creators outside of Japan. Lent covers the nations and regions of Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Organized by regions of East, Southeast, and South Asia, Asian Comics provides 178 black-and-white illustrations and detailed information on comics of sixteen countries and regions—their histories, key creators, characters, contemporary status, problems, trends, and issues. One chapter harkens back to predecessors of comics in Asia, describing scrolls, paintings, books, and puppetry with humorous tinges, primarily in China, India, Indonesia, and Japan. The first overview of Asian comic books and magazines (both mainstream and alternative), graphic novels, newspaper comic strips and gag panels, plus cartoon/humor magazines, Asian Comics brims with facts, fascinating anecdotes, and interview quotes from many pioneering masters, as well as younger artists.

Identifying Japanese Dolls
Identifying Japanese Dolls

Author: Lea Baten

Publisher: Hotei Publishing

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13:

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Lea Baten's unique and resourceful book assists in identifying the familiar and unfamiliar figurines known as ningyo, and explores the roots of the word itself: both meanings, "doll' and "human shape," are associated with play and ritual, life and death. These dolls are not necessarily just play-things with pretty faces, but range from mass-produced trivial toys to true art pieces and imposing ceremonial ornaments. Materials vary: they can be made from stone, clay, paper and wood; or brocade, ivory, pearl and lacquer. Many of the enormous variety of ningyo may be considered pieces of an unsolved puzzle that are in danger of disappearing without ever having been totally understood in the West. This book investigates the numerous meanings of the "human shape" in Japanese culture, from pre-history to the present, and explores the many, varied and subtle connotations ningyo have for the Japanese. This book not only identifies and describes ningyo, detailing their history and meaning, but also contains a comprehensive index and one of the most extensive bibliographies on the doll motif ever published in English. Scholarship, clear illustrations and a touch of humor guarantee a fresh and original approach to known and unknown ningyo.

Netsuke
Netsuke

Author: Joe Earle

Publisher:

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13:

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Essay by Joe Earle.