Japan, spirit and form

the long version

Japan: Spirit and Form is divided into ten chapters that cover Japan's artistic history with vibrancy and insight. In these ten chapters, author Shuichi Kato introduces the reader to, among others, the early, eccentric artists of the Jomon period, to the courageous few who dared to challenge the Tokugawa shogun, to Utamaro and his sphynxian geisha, and to the most recently acclaimed architectural artisans. Whether in two dimensions or three, the world of everyday life and the finer points of culture have all been touched upon by the hands of Japanese painters, sculptors, and craftsmen working in a myriad of media: oil, glass, water, wood, cloth, and clay. And throughout the three thousand years the artists of Japan have spent trying to express their world, outside influences have been present and irrepressible. The dynastic Chinese, the adventurous Portuguese, the impressionable Europeans, even Michelangelo himself have proved formidable forces. These various domestic and foreign components have combined to produce the artistic heritage of Japan, unique in spirit and form.