Overview

Japan's door to the outside world was opened in 1858, ending a 200-year period of total isolation. The wealth of superb Japanese traditions of ceramics, metalwork and architecture, as well as printmaking and painting, reached the West and brought with it electrifying new ideas of composition, colour and design. In this book, Siegfried Wichmann, the internationally renowned expert on Japonisme, accompanies his breathtaking illustrations with a text that marshals a wealth of detail and opens up new lines of enquiry.

Full Product Details

9780500281635

Table of Contents

Reviews

In March 1954, after centuries of isolation, the ports of Japan were finally opened up to the world by the US Navy. The wealth of Japanese art and artefacts which began to infiltrate Western galleries and homes several years after initiated a craze for all things Japanese which lasted well into the next century. Though there have since been a number of other works on the subject, the reissue in paperback of this substantial book first published in 1981 reflects both its graduation to textbook status as the major study of a phenomenon which lay at the roots of the subsequent development of modern art, but also as an absolute goldmine of illustrations of often breathtakingly beautiful pictures and objets d'art - from French Impressionist paintings to Japanese sword hilts. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Siegfried Wichmann has been Professor of Art History at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, since 1968.

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