MINGEI: Japanese Folk Art from the Brooklyn Museum Collection

Häftad bok. Brooklyn Museum. 1985. 191 sidor.

Nära nyskick. Hel och ren inlaga, mycket lätta hanteringsspår på pärmar. Rikt illustrerad, text engelska.
Mingei: Japanese Folk Art from The Brooklyn Museum Collection, an exhibition consisting of 115 objects selected from the Museum’s permanent collection, opens at The Brooklyn Museum on July 12 and will be on view through September 30, 1985.

The Brooklyn Museum is unique among American museums in being able to assemble such a comprehensive exhibition of Japanese folk art from its own permanent collection. Included in the exhibition are paintings, sculpture, ceramics, furniture, lacquer, textiles, toys, Okinawan folk art and Ainu artifacts (the Ainu are aborigines living on Hokkaido, the large northern island of the Japanese archipelago). The objects date mostly from the late Edo (1615-1868) and Meiji (1868-1912) Periods, that is, roughly 1800-1910.

The Japanese have never recognized a basic distinction between art (painting, sculpture, architecture) and crafts (ceramics, metalwork, furniture, textiles, etc.) as we do in the West. The distinction is, after all, really quite an arbitrary one. The Renaissance ideal of the artist as a unique individual whose divinely inspired talent sets him apart from mere craftsmen never occurred to the Japanese. The concept was introduced to Japan from the West in the latter part of the 19th century. Prior to that the Japanese took their arts and crafts for granted, regarding them both as skilled trades.

Japan was closed to foreigners from 1639 until Commodore Perry forced its reopening in 1853-54. Before that the Western-style concept of art simply did not exist in Japan. It was introduced about 1871 and two new Japanese words were coined for it: bijutsu (art) and geijutsu (the fine arts).