Art History 371: Transforming Traditions: Art and Visual Culture in Japan

"This book is intended as a survey, for the general reader, of Japanese higher culture, including religion, the visual arts, literature, the theatre, thought, and those lesser arts, such as the tea ceremony and landscape gardening that have been uniquely cherished in Japan. I have in particular sought to relate cultural developments to political and institutional trends without burdening the text with an excess of the names, dates, and other details of these trends."-Preface

"This volume contains an impressive collection of Far Eastern Art works. It covers many years of history ranging from 3500 BCE up to 1900 CE for India, Thailand, Southeast Asia(Cambodia), Indonesia(Java), China, Korea, Japan and the West."-Kelton Rockett

"Japanese art, like so many expressions of Japanese culture, is fascinatingly rich in its contrasts and paradoxes. Since the country opened its doors to the outside world in the mid-nineteenth century, Japanese art and culture have enjoyed an immense popularity in the West. When in 1993 renowned scholar Penelope Mason wrote the first edition of History of Japanese Art, it was the first such volume in thirty years to chart a detailed overview of the subject. It remains the only comprehensive survey of its kind in English. This second edition ties together more closely the development of all the media within a well-articulated historical and social context."-Summary