Light through Clouds.

Seattle, WA: Kagedo Japanese Art, 2005. Folio, blind-stamped black cloth (hardcover), 229 pp. Fine (As New) in a Fine (As New) dust jacket. Illustrated with full-color plates. From Foreword: Despite the clouds of war, polotical upheaval and social change, the first four and a half decades of the 20th century saw an unprecedented flowering of Japanese painting. The opening of Japan to the West during the preceding years brought many Japanese artists to study in Europe and North America. In addition the founding of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts provided a forum for the study of both Western and Japanese Art. Before this period students followed in the path of the teachers under whom they apprenticed. By the turn of the 20th century young artists were exposed to stylistic and technical inspiration from a broad range of painting schools and traditions. These painters began to define a new type of Japanese painting, using traditional techniques to express a modern view of the world. They defined their art in opposition to Yoga or Western Style Painting. Currents of cross-cultural influence of course eddied back and forth between Japan and the West, inevitably insipring further innovation in both traditions. At the same time the number of public art exhibitions in Japan grew at an extraordinary pace, encouraging competition and individual creativity as never before seen in the Japanese art world. (Inventory #: 14169kms)