Description:
Edo: Art in Japan 1615-1868 is the lavish catalog of an exhibition organized on a scale never before attempted--even in Japan. There, the art of the Edo period is considered too vast a subject for a single show. Edo, the old name for Tokyo, has come to represent the two and a half centuries when the shogun's government intentionally isolated Japan from the rest of the world. Much of the huge wealth generated by this intensely hierarchical and inward-looking society was devoted to the creation of art and status items for the military rulers and rich merchants who supported them, with craftsmen producing works of extraordinary elegance and inventiveness. The show comprises nearly 300 objects, including 50 national treasures or important cultural properties, many of which have never before left Japan. Besides scholarly descriptions of the objects, highly original essays by major art historians explore the six themes covered by the exhibition: ornament (or style); samurai; work; religion and festivals; travel, landscape, and nature; and entertainment. The vibrancy of a sophisticated urban population intent on pleasure suffuses the entire show, including, for example, a number of exquisite screens bright with gold that pulse with scenes of daily life in Edo. Among the most striking groups of objects are war helmets--functional, but given the most whimsical forms: a butterfly, a seashell, an upturned bowl. The superb quality of the objects and scholarship of the writing make this a landmark publication in Japanese art. --John Stevenson
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