| NOTA |
(★)(Japan´s brief but glorious Momoyama period [1568-1603] was a time of optimism, exuberance, and expansiveness in all fields of endeavor, from art to commerce. The ´joie de vivre´and sense of personal freedom that characterized the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries are nowhere expressed more vividly than in large screen and panel paintings of genre scenes, a subject that first emerged as a definite artistic entity during the Momoyama period. This book, generously illustrated with 153 photographs including 34 in full color, traces the evolution of genre painting, in the context of the social and historical background of the age, from its tentative beginnings around 1500 to its culmination a century and a half later. The greatest impetus for the development of true genre painting came from the great Kano family of painters, who wedded Japan´s two major painting traditions --the native ´yamayo-e´, with its emphasis on surface and its cursive line, and the Chinese-derived ´kanga´, with its more rigorous composition and sharply defined line-- to produce a new art form that was to be the direct precursor of ´ukiyo-e [pictures of the floating world]´. The resultant screen and panel genre paintings depict people of all classes and walks of life with a loving detail unprecedented in Japanese art. Scenes in and around the bustling capital of Kyoto [the Rakuchu Rakugai screens], lively festivals, the early Kabuki theater, artisans plying their several trades, horse racing and other popular sports, prostitutes of all kinds and their equally varied customers --the gamut of urban life is revealed in works of art that scintillate with as much color, verve, and humor today as they did centuries ago. Yuzo Yamane, a well-known art historian, is professor of Japanese art history at Tokyo University. His previous publications include works on Sotatsu and Korin, and he is currently preparing a definitive, multi-volume work on the life and works of Korin.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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