Painting In The Far East - An Introduction To The History Of Pictorial Art In Asia Especially China And Japan
Cód:
491_9781443776073
Preface to the Second Edition THE first edition of this book was published five years ago. In the interval much has happened. A quantity of new material has been brought to light interest in the subject has everywhere grown and widened. In most of the countries of the West collectors are beginning to collect, seriously and studiously, and no longer with a haphazard curiosity, specimens of the classic art of China and Japan. Museums begin to realise that these things are worthy of acquisition for their own sake and not merely as illustrations of ethnography or religion. At this moment an entire museum, exclusively devoted to the art of Eastern Asia and built expressly for the purpose, is being opened at Cologne. The example will doubtless be followed. It is a sign of the times. It is now possible, therefore, in Europe and America to get some first-hand acquaintance with Asian painting, both of early and modern times. But, as I pointed out in the preface to the first edition of this book, the student who cannot make the journey to the Far East will find indispensable the immense series of reproductions published in Japan.In my former preface He noted my indebtedness to the Kokka, the monthly magazine which was founded so long ago as 1889. The drawback to this array of volumes, treasure-house as it is, is that the Western student cannot easily find what he wants or bring the examples of each artist together for comparison. In the British Museum the plates of the Kokka have been detached from the text and arranged according to schools and artists for the convenience of the student. Besides the Kokka, there are numerous and splendid publications of the Shimbi Shoin. In the notes to the first edition of this book reference was made to the reproductions of famous and typical pictures scattered among the twenty volumes not all of them at that time published of the Shimbi Taikwan, or Selected Relics of Japanese Art. These references now seem hardly necessary, since there has
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