Published in conjunction with a 2002-2003 exhibition held at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. the museum's first major presentation of Japanese prints from the Edo period (1615-1868). The prints come from a collection of ukiyo-e prints acquired by Anne van Biema since the 1960s, which she selected for their verve and artistry out of the tens of thousands that were published during the 18th and 19th centuries (a fact that makes their research daunting). Five essays, including one by curator Yonemura (Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery), discuss various aspects of Kabuki and Kabuki actor prints, warriors and heroes, and court classics and popular prints (poetry and parody in ukiyo-e . The catalogue follows, presenting full-page reproductions and extensive commentary. Oversize: 9.5x12

Masterful Illusions: Japanese Prints in the Anne Van Biema Collection

Arts & Photography

Yonemura, Ann

Mostow, Joshua S.

Gerstle, Andrew

de Sabato Swinton, Elizabeth

KEENE, Donald

History & Criticism

Univ of Washington Pr

Vivid portraits of Kabuki actors on and off stage, warriors, legendary heroes and heroines; depictions of courage, loyalty, romance, passion, ghosts, dreams, and the beauty of the natural world -- all are encompassed by the prints included in Masterful Illusions. The richly illustrated book includes essays by an international group of scholars that elucidate the historic, economic, and cultural environment of Edo period Japan.
Beginning in the early nineteenth century, European collections of Japanese prints were gathered and transported far from the vibrant urban centers of Edo period (1615-1868) Japan, and today foreign collectors continue to be fascinated by Japanese prints. The collection of Anne van Biema, one of few women to become a serious collector of Japanese prints, reveals her fascination with the vigorous imagery from the Kabuki theater in the urban metropolises of Edo (now Tokyo) and Osaka, in heroic feats from Japanese history and legend, magic, dreams, and the supernatural. A less numerous but important group of prints express the beauty of nature, landscape, and poetic themes. The collection is noteworthy for its inclusion of early Kabuki actor prints, substantial holdings of prints by the artists Toyokuni (1769-1825) and Kuniyoshi (1797-1861), and of Osaka actor prints. Among the works by Kuniyoshi is a complete set of his series of fantastic stories associated with the twelve animals of the annual cycle.

Masterful Illusions: Japanese Prints from the Anne van Biema Collection

University of Washington Press

The Hyakunin Isshu, or One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each collection, is a sequence of one hundred Japanese poems in the tanka form, selected by the famous poet and scholar Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241) and arranged, in part, to represent the history of Japanese poetry from the seventh century down to Teika's own day. The anthology is, without doubt, the most popular and widely known collection of poetry in Japan - a distinction it has maintained for hundreds of years. In this study, Joshua Mostow challenges the idea of a final or authoritative reading of the Hyakunin Isshu and presents a refreshing, persuasive case for a reception history of this seminal work. In addition to providing a new translation of this classic text and biographical information on each poet, Mostow examines issues relating to text and image that are central to the Japanese arts from the Heian into the early modern period. By using Edo-period woodblock illustrations as pictorializations of the poems - as "pictures of the heart," or meaning, of the poems - text and image are pieced together in a holistic approach that will stand as a model for further research in the interrelationship between Japanese visual and verbal art.

Pictures of the Heart: The Hyakunin Isshu in Word and Image (English and Japanese Edition)

Literature & Fiction

Univ of Hawaii Pr

The Hyakunin Isshu, or One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each, is a sequence of one hundred Japanese poems in the tanka form, selected by the famous poet and scholar Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241) and arranged, in part, to represent the history of Japanese poetry from the seventh century down to Teika's own day. The anthology is, without doubt, the most popular and widely known collection of poetry in Japan- a distinction it has maintained for hundreds of years. In this study, Joshua Mostow challenges the idea of a final or authoritative reading of the Hyakunin Isshu and presents a refreshing, persuasive case for a reception history of this seminal work. In addition to providing a new translation of this classic text and biographical information on each poet, Mostow examines issues relating to text and image that are central to the Japanese arts from the Heian into the early modern period. By using Edo-period woodblock illustrations as pictorializations of the poems--as "pictures of the heart," or meaning, of the poems--text and image are pieced together in a holistic approach that will stand as a model for further research in the interrelationship between Japanese visual and verbal art.

Pictures of the Heart: The Hyakunin Isshu in Word and Image

University of Hawaii Press

Hyakunin’shu: Reading the Hundred Poets in Late Edo Japan

Gender relations were complex in Edo-period Japan (1603-1868). Wakashu, male youths, were desired by men and women, constituting a "third gender" with their androgynous appearance and variable sexuality. For the first time outside Japan, A Third Gender examines the fascination with wakashu in Edo-period culture and their visual representation in art, demonstrating how they destabilize the conventionally held model of gender binarism. The volume will reproduce, in colour, over a hundred works, mostly woodblock prints and illustrated books from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries produced by a number of designers ranging from such well-known artists as Okumura Masanobu, Suzuki Harunobu, Kitagawa Utamaro and Utagawa Kunisada, to lesser known artists such as Shigemasa, Eishi and Eiri. A Third Gender is based on the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum, which houses the largest collection of Japanese art in Canada, including more than 2,500 woodblock prints.

A Third Gender: Beautiful Youths in Japanese Edo-Period Prints and Paintings (1600-1868)

Ikeda, Asato

Graphic Design

Brill Hotei

“A close reading of the Hyakunin isshu is a good way to begin a study of Japanese classical poetry, and Pictures of the Heart is an indispensable introduction to both its philological problems and broader interpretative concerns. Mostow stimulates us to find fresh meaning in the texts and images of a venerable anthology whose very familiarity is the greatest obstacle to full appreciation.” —John T. Carpenter in Monumenta Nipponica

Pictures of the Heart: The Hyakunin Isshu in Word and Image (Michigan Classics in Japanese Studies) (Volume 26)

U of M Center For Japanese Studies

This publication focuses on the collection of Japanese secular painting in the Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne, a large part of which was acquired by the museums founders Adolf and Frieda Fischer before 1913. Six internationally renowned specialists of Japanese art present new insights and approaches to pre-modern Japanese visual culture in this exquisitely illustrated catalogue.The publication is divided into two parts: the first section discusses the reception of Japanese art and the dawn of East Asian art history in Germany, as well as shedding new light on the role of the monk painter as mediator between Chinese and Japanese concepts of secular art. The main body of the publication is the catalogue section. Here, 94 works (divided into seven subject categories) are presented: hand scrolls, fans, hanging scrolls and folding screens. All works are reproduced in full colour, many scrolls being shown in their entirety. Each chapter is preceded by an introduction, elucidating the historiographical, aesthetic and methodological questions that are central to current research in the visual culture of pre-modern Japan. The illuminating entries are followed by a comprehensive appendices section, including photographs of the paintings signatures, seals and transcriptions of the inscriptions in the paintings. Splendid Impressions will serve as a reference source not only for curators, scholars and students of Japanese art and culture, but also for anyone who has a personal interest in Japanese painting.

Splendid Impressions: Japanese Secular Painting 1400-1900, in the Museum of East Asian Art Cologne

McKelway, Matthew

Trede, Melanie

Lippit, Yukio

McCormick, Melissa

Croissant, Doris

BRILL

Courtly Visions:  The Ise Stories and the Politics of Cultural Appropriation traces--through the visual and literary record--the reception and use of the tenth-century literary romance through the seventeenth century. Ise monogatari (The Ise Stories) takes shape in a salon of politically disenfranchised courtiers, then transforms later in the Heian period (794-1185) into a key subtext for autobiographical writings by female aristocrats. In the twelfth century it is turned into an esoteric religious text, while in the fourteenth it is used as cultural capital in the struggles within the imperial household. Mostow further examines the development of the standardized iconographies of the Rinpa school and the printed Saga-bon edition, exploring what these tell us about how the Ise was being read and why. The study ends with an Epilogue that briefly surveys the uses Ise was put to throughout the Edo period and into the modern day.

Courtly Visions: The Ise Stories and the Politics of Cultural Appropriation (Japanese Visual Culture)

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