Originally published for the opening of the Toshiba Gallery of Japanese art at the Victoria & Albert Museum, this book celebrates and sets in context many of its greatest treasures. The Musuem's superb Japanese holdings, acquired over a period of one hundred and fifty years, started with the international exhibitions of the second half of the nineteenth century and the great private collections formed in Britain at the beginning of the twentieth. More recently they have been extended by the purchase of major pieces including exciting contemporary works by leading artists. The result is an unrivalled panorama of Japan's achievements in art and design from the earliest times, with particular emphasis on ceramics, lacquer, textiles, prints and metalwork of the last four centuries.

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.

The motifs are organized according to broad thematic categories such as "the cosmos, heaven and earth" and "animals of the land and sea," among others, allowing for broad reading on a number of topics of interest to a wide variety of readers, including collectors of Asian art and students of Japan.".

**Winner, Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title 2015** This Japanese design book presents the arts, aesthetics and culture of Japan with over 160 stunning color photos and extensive historical and cultural commentary . The Japanese sensibility often possesses an intuitive, emotional appeal, whether it's a silk kimono, a carefully raked garden path, an architectural marvel, a teapot, or a contemporary work of art. This allure has come to permeate the entire culture of Japan—it is manifest in the most mundane utensil and snack food packaging, as well as in Japanese architecture and fine art. In Japanese Design, Asian art expert and author Patricia J. Graham explains how Japanese aesthetics based on fine craftsmanship and simplicity developed. Her unusual, full-color presentation reveals this design aesthetic in an absorbing way. Focusing on ten elements of Japanese design, Graham explores how visual qualities, the cultural parameters and the Japanese religious traditions of Buddhism and Shinto have impacted the appearance of its arts. Japanese Design is a handbook for the millions of us who have felt the special allure of Japanese art, culture and crafts. Art and design fans and professionals have been clamoring for this—a book that fills the need for an intelligent, culture-rich overview of what Japanese design is and means. Topics explored in Japanese Design include: The Aesthetics of Japanese Design The Cultural Parameters of Japanese Design Early Promoters of "Artistic Japan" 1830s-1950s

Utilitarian objects, including basketry, ceramics, lacquer, metalwork, and textiles, are presented in five areas of aesthetic taste that describe the essence of Japanese design.

Developed out of the aesthetic philosophy of cha-no-yu (the tea ceremony) in fifteenth-century Japan, wabi sabi is an aesthetic that finds beauty in things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. Taken from the Japanese words wabi, which translates to less is more, and sabi, which means attentive melancholy, wabi sabi refers to an awareness of the transient nature of earthly things and a corresponding pleasure in the things that bear the mark of this impermanence. As much a state of mind--an awareness of the things around us and an acceptance of our surroundings--as it is a design style, wabi sabi begs us to appreciate the simple beauty in life--a chipped vase, a quiet rainy day, the impermanence of all things. Presenting itself as an alternative to today's fast-paced, mass-produced, neon-lighted world, wabi sabi reminds us to slow down and take comfort in the simple, natural beauty around us. In addition to presenting the philosophy of wabi-sabi, this book includes how-to design advice--so that a transformation of body, mind, and home can emerge. Chapters include: History: The Development of Wabi Sabi Culture: Wabi Sabi and the Japanese Character Art: Defining Aesthetics Design: Creating Expressions with Wabi Sabi Materials Spirit: The Universal Spirit of Wabi Sabi

From the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, Japan was a vital world center for postcard art. Art of the Japanese Postcard presents 300 full-color examples of these cards, culled from the vast Leonard A. Lauder Collection. Authoritative essays by leading scholars of Japanese art and culture, plus a statement by the collector himself, highlight the design, development, and cultural function of these rarely studied, but highly influential and visually exciting, expressions of graphic genius. From the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, Japan was a vital world centre for postcard art. More than just casual mail pieces, these postcards were often designed by prominent artists and had a visual impact that belied their modest format. Remarkably beautiful examples of graphic design in their own right, they also recorded the shifting definitions of 'East' and 'West' at a time when such European currents as Art Nouveau began to show up in Japanese visual productions. Art of the Japanese Postcard presents 350 full-color examples of these cards, culled from the vast Leonard A. Lauder Collection. printing, but also for the insight they provide into contemporary Japanese artistic practices - insights not relayed in standard histories that focus on painting and sculpture - as well as for the fluid interplay of European and Japanese modes. Authoritative essays by leading scholars of Japanese art and culture, plus a statement by the collector himself, highlight the design, development, and cultural function of these rarely studied, but highly influential and visually exciting, expressions of graphic genius.