ARTS OF JAPAN: NARRATIVE PICTURE SCROLLS. Okudaira, Hideo 1973 (Tokyo)

Emaki, the narrative picture scroll produced in Japan in great numbers from the tenth to the sixteenth centuries, are both an art from of great charm and fascination and a mirror of Japanese life and customs in those times. Picture scrolls came to Japan from China but there were transformed, by the emphasis on decorative style and distinctively Japanese art.
Although the delicate, dreamlike scroll of the Tale of Genji is perhaps the best known to Westerners, emaki encompass a wide range of subject matter and styles. They illustrate -usually with accompanying text- Buddhist sutras, literary works, historical acounts, moral tales, biographies, military histories, poems, fables, and legends. They range in style from the richest of coloring and decoration to simple lines in ink monochrome, and they were painted both by professional artists and by gifted amateurs.
The strong story-telling element in emaki makes natural the predominance of human figures and gives them their incomparable value as sources of information on seven centuries of live in ancient and medieval Japan. Emperor and peasant, nobere and monk, animals and goblins live in these scrollls as the artist who painted them did, reflecting that deep and unique relationship between man and nature that is so central a part of japanese culture. Because of this focus and because almost every work has a basis in a tale of actual events or in literature, picture scrolls have played a peculiarly important role in the cultural and artistic history of Japan.

Ref. 1229
Autor: Okudaira, Hideo
Idioma: English
Editorial: Weatherhill-Shibundo (Tokyo)
1973
19x23,50 cm.
151 páginas. Tapas duras con sobrecubierta protegidas con plástico por anterior propietario. Numerosas ilustraciones b/n y color. Firma. Buen estado.

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