Japanese Design: An Illustrated Guide to Art, Architecture and Aesthetics in Japan

Description

Asian art expert Dr. Patricia Graham helps guide readers through the aspects of Japanese art and design we've all come to appreciate--whether it's a silk kimono, carefully raked garden path or modern snack food packaging. From the ten key characteristics of Japanese design to the Shinto and Buddhist influences on its aesthetics, this book serves as a great resource for the different styles and how they developed. Another fascinating and less explored piece of design in Japan is its influence on and interpretation by Westerners. From Frank Lloyd Wright to Lafcadio Hearn, artists, scientists, designers, journalists and philosophers were inspired by Japan's arts and crafts in the 19th century. This often romanticised version of Japanese design--viewed through a Western cultural lens--continues to influence our view of it to this day. Graham unpacks the sincere, but sometimes misguided, interpretations of concepts like wabi sabi and shibui.

Patricia J. Graham, Ph.D serves as a consultant and appraiser of Asian art for institutions, businesses and collectors, and lectures on the subject throughout the U.S.--from the Smithsonian and Metropolitan Museum of Art to Columbia University and U.C. Berkeley. She has an M.A. in Asian art history and a Ph.D in Japanese art history from the University of Kansas. Dr. Graham has worked in numerous art museums throughout her career and has also taught everything from art and cultural history to museum studies at the university level. She is the recipient of several prestigious fellowships, including from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, the Asian Cultural Council, the Fulbright Program and the National Endowment for Humanities, among others. She lives in the Denver area. www.patriciagraham.net

"Graham's book gives a thoughtful account of Japanese art and design, its cultural context in Japan and its proponents abroad. Her discussion of design terminology, including the origins as well as the uses and misuses through the decades of terms like wabi sabi and shibui is essential reading for anyone interested in Japanese art." --Janice Katz, Roger L. Weston Associate Curator of Japanese Art, Art Institute of Chicago "In this beautifully illustrated book, Patricia Graham extracts the overarching visual characteristics of Japanese design sensibilities and shows how deeply they are rooted in their cultural, spiritual, and social backgrounds--something none of the existing textbooks of Japanese art history do satisfactorily." --Mikiko Hirayama, Associate Professor and Director of Museum Studies, Art History/School of Art, College of Design, Art, Architecture & Planning, University of Cincinnati "In this unprecedented work, the underlying aesthetic and cultural roots that are essential for an understanding of Japanese design are explained engagingly and accessibly by Graham...A must-read for designers, artists, connoisseurs and scholars of Japanese art and culture, and many others." --Andreas Marks, Head of the Department of Japanese and Korean Art and Director of the Clark Center at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts