Storytelling in Japanese Art

Storytelling in Japanese Art
Author: Masako Watanabe
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Total Pages: 122
Release: 2011
Genre: Emaki Jōruri (Scrolls)
ISBN: 1588394409

Presents 17 classic Japanese stories as told through 30 illustrated handscrolls ranging from the 13th to 19th centuries.

Rakugo, the Popular Narrative Art of Japan

Rakugo, the Popular Narrative Art of Japan
Author: Heinz Morioka
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 500
Release: 1990
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN:

Rakugo is the traditional Japanese art of storytelling. The stories are also called rakugo, or hanashi, and they are performed by professional narrators called rakugoka or hanashika. The customary place where rakugo stories are told is the vaudeville-type variety called the yose.

Kamishibai Man

Kamishibai Man
Author: Allen Say
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 37
Release: 2005-10-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0547345941

The Kamishibai man used to ride his bicycle into town where he would tell stories to the children and sell them candy, but gradually, fewer and fewer children came running at the sound of his clappers. They were all watching their new televisions instead. Finally, only one boy remained, and he had no money for candy. Years later, the Kamishibai man and his wife made another batch of candy, and he pedaled into town to tell one more story—his own. When he comes out of the reverie of his memories, he looks around to see he is surrounded by familiar faces—the children he used to entertain have returned, all grown up and more eager than ever to listen to his delightful tales. Using two very different yet remarkable styles of art, Allen Say tells a tale within a tale, transporting readers seamlessly to the Japan of his memories.

The Comic Storytelling of Western Japan

The Comic Storytelling of Western Japan
Author: M. W. Shores
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 536
Release: 2021-08-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1108912699

Rakugo, a popular form of comic storytelling, has played a major role in Japanese culture and society. Developed during the Edo (1600–1868) and Meiji (1868–1912) periods, it is still popular today, with many contemporary Japanese comedians having originally trained as rakugo artists. Rakugo is divided into two distinct strands, the Tokyo tradition and the Osaka tradition, with the latter having previously been largely overlooked. This pioneering study of the Kamigata (Osaka) rakugo tradition presents the first complete English translation of five classic rakugo stories, and offers a history of comic storytelling in Kamigata (modern Kansai, Kinki) from the seventeenth century to the present day. Considering the art in terms of gender, literature, performance, and society, this volume grounds Kamigata rakugo in its distinct cultural context and sheds light on the 'other' rakugo for students and scholars of Japanese culture and history.

Explaining Pictures

Explaining Pictures
Author: Ikumi Kaminishi
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2006-01-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780824826970

Beginning with the claim that the popularization of Buddhism in the medieval period was a phenomenon of visual culture, Explaining Pictures reexamines the history (and historiography) of medieval Japanese Buddhism. With theoretical sophistication and a full appreciation of the power of imagery to convey and control religious meaning, it investigates a range of aspects of etoki, including the particularly active role of itinerant nuns, whose performances were especially edifying to female audiences, as well as the visual hagiography of the reputed founder of Japanese Buddhism, the pictorial projections of Buddhist paradise and hell, and the explanation, through visual imagery, of sacred mountains. Explaining Pictures is the first book-length study in English devoted to the phenomenon of Buddhist art as religious propaganda and pictorial storytelling as a form of popular culture in medieval Japan. A truly interdisciplinary study, it suggests fruitful avenues of discussion between art historians and historians of Japanese Buddhism. Scholars and students with an interest in Japanese Buddhism, art, and social and cultural history will find its examination of significant issues fresh and stimulating. It will also find an appreciative audience among those concerned with the relationship between art and religion, the mechanics of proselytization, and Asian visual culture.

Love, Fight, Feast

Love, Fight, Feast
Author: Khanh Trinh
Publisher: Scheidegger and Spiess
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2021-12-15
Genre:
ISBN: 9783039420247

A uniquely comprehensive survey of Japanese narrative art across eight centuries. The use of pictures to communicate a story has a long tradition in Japanese culture that dates back more than a thousand years. Such narrative illustrations draw on Buddhist texts, classic literature, poetry, and theatrical scenes to create rich visual imagery realized in a wide range of media and formats. Quotations from and allusions to heroic epics and romances were disseminated through exquisite paintings, woodblock prints, and in pieces of applied arts such as lacquerware or ceramics, thus becoming anchored in the collective consciousness. As story-telling art found expression in a variety of materialities, it became an integral part of daily life. A fascinating narrative space evolved that combined artistic excellence and aesthetic pleasure. Love, Fight, Feast features some one hundred paintings, woodblock prints, illustrated woodblock-printed books, as well as lacquer and metal objects, porcelain, and textiles from the thirteenth to the twentieth century, alongside scholarly essays on a range of aspects of Japanese narrative art. Published in conjunction with an exhibition at the renowned Museum Rietberg in Zurich, the book offers a unique survey of the multifaceted, colorful, and imaginative world of Japanese narrative art across eight centuries.

Ice Cream Work

Ice Cream Work
Author: Naoshi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9780983491736

The Ice Cream Man works hard in his ice cream shop making party poppers, and cakes and even taking a day off once in awhile.

The Influence of Japanese Art on Design

The Influence of Japanese Art on Design
Author: Hannah Sigur
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2008
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1586857495

During America's Gilded Age (dates), the country was swept by a mania for all things Japanese. It spread from coast to coast, enticed everyone from robber barons to street vendors with its allure, and touched every aspect of life from patent medicines to wallpaper. Americans of the time found in Japanese art every design language: modernism or tradition, abstraction or realism, technical virtuosity or unfettered naturalism, craft or art, romance or functionalism. The art of Japan had a huge influence on American art and design. Title compares juxtapositions of American glass, silver and metal arts, ceramics, textiles, furniture, jewelry, advertising, and packaging with a spectrum of Japanese material ranging from expensive one-of-a-kind art crafts to mass-produced ephemera. Beginning in the Aesthetic movement, this book continues through the Arts & Crafts era and ends in Frank Lloyd Wright's vision, showing the reader how that model became transformed from Japanese to American in design and concept. Hannah Sigur is an art historian, writer, and editor with eight years' residence and study in East and Southeast Asia. She has a master's degree from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and is completing a PhD in the arts of Japan. Her writings include co-authoring A Master Guide to the Art of Floral Design (Timber Press, 2002), which is listed in "The Best Books of 2002" by The Christian Science Monitor and is now in its second edition; and "The Golden Ideal: Chinese Landscape Themes in Japanese Art," in Lotus Leaves, A Master Guide to the Art of Floral Design (2001). She lives in Berkeley.

Japanese Warriors, Rogues and Beauties

Japanese Warriors, Rogues and Beauties
Author: Kendall H. Brown
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2010-11-18
Genre: Crafts & Hobbies
ISBN: 0486476405

Heroes, villains, and damsels in distress abound in these richly colored, dramatic images from the Japanese equivalent of dime-store novels. These illustrations were selected from woodblock-printed covers and frontispiece illustrations from 64 popular books published in Osaka from 1898 through 1903. They include samurai and strong men, demons and detectives, courtesans, sumo wrestlers, and other vivid characters in scenarios ranging from romantic to grotesquely violent. Printed in the color woodblock method in use since the late eighteenth century, they provide a link between an ancient storytelling tradition and the beginning of mass-published popular literature. Created during the Meiji era (1868–1912), when Japanese society was changing dramatically with the influx of Western technology and values, these images appealed to a wide audience of newly literate readers. Their scenes of retribution and sacrifice reflect a modern consciousness of Japanese history and a longing for an idealized vision of the past, marked by traditional values of loyalty, filial piety, self-sacrifice, and chivalry. Long considered a disposable form of popular culture, these books were not carefully preserved or collected. This collection, assembled by an expert on Japanese art, offers a rare glimpse of a newly rediscovered art form.

The Tale of Genji

The Tale of Genji
Author: John T. Carpenter
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Total Pages: 371
Release: 2019-03-04
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1588396657

With its vivid descriptions of courtly society, gardens, and architecture in early eleventh-century Japan, The Tale of Genji—recognized as the world’s first novel—has captivated audiences around the globe and inspired artistic traditions for one thousand years. Its female author, Murasaki Shikibu, was a diarist, a renowned poet, and, as a tutor to the young empress, the ultimate palace insider; her monumental work of fiction offers entry into an elaborate, mysterious world of court romance, political intrigue, elite customs, and religious life. This handsomely designed and illustrated book explores the outstanding art associated with Genji through in-depth essays and discussions of more than one hundred works. The Tale of Genji has influenced all forms of Japanese artistic expression, from intimately scaled albums to boldly designed hanging scrolls and screen paintings, lacquer boxes, incense burners, games, palanquins for transporting young brides to their new homes, and even contemporary manga. The authors, both art historians and Genji scholars, discuss the tale’s transmission and reception over the centuries; illuminate its place within the history of Japanese literature and calligraphy; highlight its key episodes and characters; and explore its wide-ranging influence on Japanese culture, design, and aesthetics into the modern era. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Verdana}