| NOTA |
(★)(The folk arts of Japan have increasingly attracted the attention of connoisseurs in the West, but few Western admirers of these arts and their creations have had the opportunity to view them in the context of Japanese life. The present book has the considerable virtue of offering the Western reader a fascinating look at Japanese folk arts through Japanese eyes and in the setting of their native environment. At the same time that it places these arts in social perspective --historically, geographically, and economically-- it provides an absorbing exposition of the aesthetic instincts and principles that govern the folk artists themselves. In a word, it is a guide to the appreciation of a significant aspect of Japanese culture. In a generous selection of photographs --30 in full color and 130 in black and white-- the book illustrates the full range of Japanese folk-craft products : ceramic ware, textiles, woodwork, metalwork, and pictorial design. Here are the famous wooden chests with their ironwork fittings, the straightforward and naively charming ´sake´ bottles, the boldly designed stoneware plates, the fabrics colored with natural dyes, the sturdy iron tea-kettles, the bright wooden-plaque votive pictures --all the striking assortment of handmade folk-craft products that have played a role in everyday Japanese life and delighted travelers from the West with their honest simplicity. In an age dominated by machines and their uninspired products, this book comes as a true refreshment. The anonymous folk artists of Japan, although fewer in number today than in their flourishing period of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, still produce an astonishing variety of objects that combine utility with beauty and display the enduring virtues of honesty, unpretentiousness, and quiet strength. ◆Kichiemon Okamura, presently a lecturer at Tokyo´s Tamagawa University, is a member of the National Artists´ Association and of the Board of Directors of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo. His published works include textbooks on wood turning, casting, woodworking, dyeing, and the applied arts of Okinawa. Kageo Muraoka, professor of practical and fine arts at the Tokyo University of Art and Design, has published works on Buddhist art, folk art, and the tea ceremony. His articles appear frequently in the magazine Mingei [Folk Art], published by the Japan Folk Art Association.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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