*Japanese Art

Jan Martin

1AD-6
Dana San Juan
Karel Gascon
Cyrus Geneta
Igel Manalo
*Short information:
What is Japan?
*Japan ( 日本  Nihon or Nippon, officially  日本
国   Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku) is an island
country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific
Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of
Japan, China, North Korea, South
Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of
Okhotsk in the north to the East China
Sea and Taiwan in the south.
The characters that make up Japan's
name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is
sometimes referred to as the "Land of the
Rising Sun".
*Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The
four largest islands
are Honshu, Hokkaidō, Kyushu and Shikoku,
together accounting for 97% of Japan's land
area. Most of the islands are mountainous,
many volcanic; for example, Japan’s highest
peak, Mount Fuji, is a volcano. Japan has the
world's tenth-largest population, with over
127 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area,
which includes the de facto capital city
of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures,
is the largest metropolitan area in the world,
with over 30 million residents.
*Japanese Art
*Japanese art covers a wide range of art
styles and media, including ancient pottery,
sculpture in wood and bronze, ink painting on
silk and paper and more recently manga,
cartoon, along with a myriad of other types of
works of art.
*It also has a long history, ranging from the
beginnings of human habitation in Japan,
sometime in the 10th millennium BC, to the
present.
*Historically, Japan has been
subject to sudden invasions
of new and alien ideas
followed by long periods of
minimal contact with the
outside world.
*Assimilated different
elements of foreign culture
that complemented their
aesthetic preferences.
*The earliest complex art in
Japan was produced in the
7th and 8th centuries A.D. in
connection with Buddhism. 
*In the 9th century, as the Japanese began to turn
away from China and develop indigenous forms of
expression, the secular arts became increasingly
important; until the late 15th century, both
religious and secular arts flourished.
*After the Ōnin War (1467–1477), Japan entered a
period of political, social, and economic disruption
that lasted for over a century.
* In the state that emerged under the leadership of
the Tokugawa shogunate, organized religion played
a much less important role in people's lives, and the
arts that survived were primarily secular.
*Painting is the preferred * Painting
artistic expression in Japan,
practiced by amateurs and
professionals alike.
*Until modern times, the
Japanese wrote with
brush rather than a pen, and
their familiarity with brush
techniques has made them
particularly sensitive to the
values and aesthetics of
painting. 
Edo period
*A style of woodblock prints called
ukiyo-e became a major art form
and its techniques were fine tuned
to produce colorful prints of
everything from daily news to
schoolbooks.
*Found sculpture a much less
sympathetic medium for artistic
expression.
*Most Japanese sculpture is
associated with religion, and the
medium's use declined with the
lessening importance of
traditional Buddhism.
 * Japanese pottery and porcelain
*Japanese ceramics are
among the finest in the
world and include the
earliest known artifacts
of their culture.
*Dates back to the
Neolithic period.
*Kilns have produced
earthenware, stoneware
, glazed pottery, glazed
stoneware, porcelain,
and blue-and-white
ware.
 *Architecture
*Japanese preferences for
natural materials and an
interaction of interior and
exterior space are clearly
expressed.
*has a long history as any
other aspect of Japanese
culture.
*Originally heavily
influenced by Chinese
architecture from the Tang
Dynasty
 * history of
Japanese Art
 * Jōmon art
(c 11000?–c 300 BC)
*The first settlers of Japan
*named for the cord markings that decorated
the surfaces of their clay vessels
*were nomadic hunter-gatherers who later
practiced organized farming and built cities
with population of hundreds if not thousands.
*They built simple houses of wood and thatch
set into shallow earthen pits to provide
warmth from the soil.
*They crafted lavishly decorated pottery
storage vessels, clay figurines called dogu,
and crystal jewels.
 Sprouted Vessel
Kawasaki City Museum

Figurine Dogu, Jomon final(?); Tokoro Archaeological

Musée Guimet à Paris. Center, Hokaido
*Yayoi art
*named for the district in Tokyo where
remnants of their settlements first were
found.
*These people, arriving in Japan about 350
BC, brought their knowledge of wetland
rice cultivation, the manufacture of
copper weapons and bronze bells
(dōtaku), and wheel-thrown, kiln-fired
ceramics.
 Dotaku
(bell-shaped
bronze).
 *Kofun art
(c AD 250–552)
*Also called Tumulus Art
* represents a modification
of Yayoi culture, attributable either to
internal development or external force.
* Diverse groups of people formed political
alliances and coalesced into a nation.
*Typical artifacts are bronze mirrors,
symbols of political alliances, and clay
sculptures called haniwa which were
erected outside tombs.
Haniwa cylinders from the Sakitama Burial
Mound, Saitama Prefecture
Asuka and Nara art
*Named because the seat of Japanese
government was located in the Asuka
Valley from 552 to 710 and in the city of
Nara until 784, the first significant
invasion by Asian continental culture
took place in Japan.
*The transmission of Buddhism provided
the initial impetus for contacts
between China, Korea and Japan.
*The Japanese recognized the facets of
Chinese culture that could profitably be
incorporated into their own: a system for
converting ideas and sounds into
writing; historiography; complex theories
of government, such as an
effective bureaucracy; and, most
important for the arts, new technologies,
new building techniques, more advanced
methods of casting in bronze, and new
techniques and media for painting.
*The earliest Japanese sculptures of the
Buddha are dated to the 6th and 7th century.  
*They ultimately derive from the 1st-3rd
century CE Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara,
characterized by flowing dress patterns and
realistic rendering, on which Chinese and
Korean artistic traits were superimposed.
*These indigenous characteristics can be seen
in early Buddhist art in Japan and some early
Japanese Buddhist sculpture is now believed to
have originated in Korea, particularly from
Baekje, or Korean artisans who immigrated to
Yamato Japan.
*Particularly, the semi-seated Maitreya form
was adapted into a highly developed Korean
style which was transmitted to Japan as
evidenced by the Kōryū-ji Miroku Bosatsu and
the Chūgū-ji Siddhartha statues.
*Although many historians portray Korea as a
mere transmitter of Buddhism, the Three
Kingdoms, and particularly Baekje, were
instrumental as active agents in the
introduction and formation of a Buddhist
tradition in Japan in 538 or 552.
* They illustrate the terminal point of the Silk
Road transmission of Art during the first few
centuries of our era. Other examples can be
found in the development of the iconography
of the Japanese Fūjin Wind
God, the Niō guardians, and the near-
Classical floral patterns in temple decorations.
*Heian art
*In 794 the capital of Japan was officially
transferred to Heian-kyō (present-
day Kyoto), where it remained until 1868.
*The term Heian period refers to the
years between 794 and 1185, when
the Kamakura shogunate was established
at the end of the Genpei War.
* The period is further divided into the
early Heian and the late Heian,
or Fujiwara era, the pivotal date being
894, the year imperial embassies to
China were officially discontinued.
* At the core of Shingon worship are mandalas,
diagrams of the spiritual universe, which then
began to influence temple design.
*Japanese Buddhist architecture also adopted
the stupa, originally an Indian architectural
form, in its Chinese-style pagoda.

*Early
Heian art
*The temples erected for this new sect were
built in the mountains, far away from the
Court and the laity in the capital.
* The irregular topography of these sites forced
Japanese architects to rethink the problems of
temple construction, and in so doing to choose
more indigenous elements of design.
*Cypress-bark roofs replaced those of ceramic
tile, wood planks were used instead of earthen
floors, and a separate worship area for the laity
was added in front of the main sanctuary.
*Created a new form of Buddha hall, the Amida
hall, which blends the secular with the
religious, and houses one or more Buddha
images within a structure resembling the
mansions of the nobility.
* 

Fujiwara
art
*Raigō paintings on the wooden doors of
the Hō-ō-dō, depicting the Descent of the
Amida Buddha, are an early example
of Yamato-e, Japanese-style painting, and
contain representations of the scenery
around Kyoto.
* illustrated narrative handscroll, known as e-
maki (picture scroll)
*represents one of the high points of Japanese
painting.

*E-maki
Kamakura art
*In 1180 a war broke out between the two most
powerful warrior clans, the Taira and
the Minamoto; five years later the Minamoto
emerged victorious and established a de facto
seat of government at the seaside village
of Kamakura, where it remained until 1333.
*With the shift of power from the nobility to the
warrior class, the arts had to satisfy a new
audience: men devoted to the skills of warfare,
priests committed to making Buddhism available
to illiterate commoners, and conservatives, the
nobility and some members of the priesthood
who regretted the declining power of the court.
*realism, a popularizing trend, and a
classical revival characterize the art of
the Kamakura period. In the Kamakura
period, Kyoto and Nara remained the
centers of artistic production and high
culture.
*One of the most famous works of this
period is an Amitabha Triad (completed
in 1195), in Jōdo-ji in Ono, created by 
Kaikei, Unkei's successor.

*Sculpture
* The Kegon Engi
Emaki, the illustrated
history of the founding
of the Kegon sect, is
an excellent example
of the popularizing
trend in Kamakura
painting. The Kegon
sect, one of the most
important in the Nara
period, fell on hard
times during the *Calligraphy and
ascendancy of
the Pure Land sects
painting
*Muromachi art
*The foremost artists of
the Muromachi period
are the priest-
painters Shūbun and Ses
shū.
*Shūbun, a monk at the
Kyoto temple
of Shokoku-ji, created in
the painting Reading in
a Bamboo Grove (1446) *Painting
a realistic landscape
with deep recession into
space.
*Azuchi-Momoyama art
*Hasegawa Tohaku,
a contemporary of
Eitoku, developed a
somewhat different
and more
decorative style for
large-scale screen
paintings. In his
'Maple Screen', now *Painting
in the temple
of Chishaku-in,
Kyoto
*Art of
the Edo
period
* Katsura Detached
Palace, built in
imitation of Genji's
palace, contains a
cluster of shoin
buildings that
combine elements of
classic Japanese
architecture with
innovative
restatements.

*Architecture
*Art of the
Postwar
period
*As Japan has always made little distinction
between 'fine art' and 'decorative art', as
the West is first beginning to do, it is
important to note Japan's significant and
unique contributions to the fields of art in
entertainment, commercial uses, and
graphic design.
* Cartoons imported from America led to
anime that at first were derived
exclusively from manga stories.
*Hayao Miyazaki and the artists and
animators of Studio Ghibli are generally
regarded to be among the best the anime
world has to offer.
* Japan also flourishes in the fields of
graphic design, commercial art (e.g.
billboards, magazine advertisements),
and in video game graphics and concept
art.
*http://heritageofjapan.wordpress.com/just-what-was-s
o-amazing-about-jomon-japan/ways-of-the-jomon-worl
d-2/jomon-crafts-and-what-they-were-for/ways-of-the-
jomon-world/types-of-pottery-and-how-to-make-a-jomo
n-pot
/
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Japan
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_art
*http://www.japaneseart.org/
*http://www.taiko.org/?gclid=CIKJ3K3h66MCFQlB6wodsC
Tx3g

*References
*The end ! XD