
Challenging Past and Present
The Metamorphosis of Nineteenth-century Japanese Art
Ellen P. Conant(Editor)
University of Hawai'i Press
Published on 16. March 2006
Book
Hardback
344 pages
978-0-8248-2937-7 (ISBN)
Description
The complex and coherent development of Japanese art during the course of the nineteenth century was inadvertently disrupted by a political event: the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Scholars of both the preceding Edo (1615-1868) and the succeeding Meiji (1868-1912) eras have shunned the decades bordering this arbitrary divide, thus creating an art-historical void that the former view as a period of waning technical and creative inventiveness and the latter as one threatened by Meiji reforms and indiscriminate westernization and modernization. ""Challenging Past and Present"", to the contrary, demonstrates that the period 1840-1890, as seen progressively rather than retrospectively, experienced a dramatic transformation in the visual arts, which in turn made possible the creative achievements of the twentieth century. The first group of chapters takes as its theme the diverse cultural currents of the transitional period, particularly as they applied to art. The second section deals with the inconsistent yet determinedly pragmatic courses pursed by artists, entrepreneurs, and patrons to achieve a secure footing in the uncertain terrain of early Meiji. Further chapters look at how painters and sculptors sought to absorb and integrate foreign influences and reinterpret their own stylistic mediums.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Honolulu, HI
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
45 illustrations, 15 in colour
Dimensions
Height: 260 mm
Width: 186 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
971 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8248-2937-7 (9780824829377)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Ellen P. Conant, an independent scholar specializing in modern Japanese art, has written extensively on East-West artistic exchange in the modern era. She was guest curator and general editor of Nihonga, Transcending the Past: Japanese Style Painting 1868-1968 (The Saint Louis Art Museum, 1995).