Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2019 - Humanities — Art & Architecture — Asian and Asian American Studies

This magnificent volume has its roots in the exhibition Colorful Realm: Japanese Bird-and-Flower Paintings by Ito Jakuchu (1716-1800), held in Washington at the National Gallery in spring 2012 to celebrate the centennial of the planting of the cherry trees, a gift of the Japanese government, on the Tidal Basin. On that occasion a symposium (in partnership with the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery) brought together a distinguished group of scholars whose expertise on a wide variety of aspects of the Edo period and its artists is manifest in this book's 12 essays. Meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated, the essays examine Ito Jakuchu and his work along with major schools of painting (Kano, Sumiyoshi, and Itaya) and their Tokugawa patrons; Edo period potters, both professional and amateur; Ogata Korin and Noh theater; Ukiyo-e artists in sociocultural settings; and Sotatsu and Koetsu as collaborators. The volume closes with Timothy Clark's essay "The Jakuchu Memorial Exhibition of 1885." This wide-ranging yet comprehensive study of the Edo period is an invaluable addition to the literature on the arts and culture of Japan.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.