During America's Gilded Age (dates), the country was swept by a mania for all things Japanese. It spread from coast to coast, enticed everyone from robber barons to street vendors with its allure, and touched every aspect of life from patent medicines to wallpaper. Americans of the time found in Japanese art every design language: modernism or tradition, abstraction or realism, technical virtuosity or unfettered naturalism, craft or art, romance or functionalism. The art of Japan had a huge influence on American art and design. Title compares juxtapositions of American glass, silver and metal arts, ceramics, textiles, furniture, jewelry, advertising, and packaging with a spectrum of Japanese material ranging from expensive one-of-a-kind art crafts to mass-produced ephemera. Beginning in the Aesthetic movement, this book continues through the Arts & Crafts era and ends in Frank Lloyd Wright's vision, showing the reader how that model became transformed from Japanese to American in design and concept. Hannah Sigur is an art historian, writer, and editor with eight years' residence and study in East and Southeast Asia. She has a master's degree from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and is completing a PhD in the arts of Japan. Her writings include co-authoring A Master Guide to the Art of Floral Design (Timber Press, 2002), which is listed in "The Best Books of 2002" by The Christian Science Monitor and is now in its second edition; and "The Golden Ideal: Chinese Landscape Themes in Japanese Art," in Lotus Leaves, A Master Guide to the Art of Floral Design (2001). She lives in Berkeley.

The Akita Ranga art school is a by-product of rangaku, 'Dutch learning', an important intellectual movement in eighteenth-century Japan. Akita Ranga artists, highly influenced by illustrations in Western books, created a new direction in Japanese art by using Western techniques such as chiaroscuro (shading) and perspective. Odano Naotake (1750-80), a leading Akita Ranga artist, illustrated Kaitai shinsho, Japan's first anatomy book. Dr. Johnson first analyses how Naotake applied new techniques to traditional Japanese art and created a quasi-Western style of painting. Secondly, she focuses on Lord Satake Shozan (1748-85), who wrote Japan's first art theory and criticism on Western art and whose complete text is translated and incorporated in this book. Shozan also based his three sketchbooks on foreign books, especially the Schouwtoneel der Natuur by Noel A. Pluche, and wrote an encyclopaedia of scientific lore. By focusing on the influence of illustrations in foreign books, Johnson brings a new perspective to Japanese art history.

Art critic, author, and poet Sadakichi Hartmann was born to a German father and a Japanese mother, to whom he dedicated Japanese Art. His dual cultural heritage gives him the unique position of presenting Asian art with Western authority. However, he was quick to clarify that this popular volume is "not so much a book for experts and connoisseurs - too much has been written in that strain - but for those persons who would like to become more intimately acquainted with Japanese Art, but have been deterred from doing so by the want of a book which would accomplish this, without obliging them to turn specialists." This could explain why this particular work of the well-known critic became a hit when it was published in 1903. Hartmann used an easy, conversational tone in discussing early religious paintings in the history of Japanese art, as well as the artistic works produced during the feudal and renaissance periods. He also covered the realistic movement, ornamental arts, Japanese architecture and sculpture, and its influence on Western civilization. The pages of this volume are not covered only with text - they also feature a good number of illustrations of the key components of Japan's art heritage. Hartmann's Japanese Art is recommended reading for those wishing to learn more about the art in the Land of the Rising Sun without having to deal with highly technical or scholarly nit-picking. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Art critic, author, and poet Sadakichi Hartmann was born to a German father and a Japanese mother, to whom he dedicated Japanese Art. His dual cultural heritage gives him the unique position of presenting Asian art with Western authority. However, he was quick to clarify that this popular volume is "not so much a book for experts and connoisseurs – too much has been written in that strain – but for those persons who would like to become more intimately acquainted with Japanese Art, but have been deterred from doing so by the want of a book which would accomplish this, without obliging them to turn specialists." This could explain why this particular work of the well-known critic became a hit when it was published in 1903. Hartmann used an easy, conversational tone in discussing early religious paintings in the history of Japanese art, as well as the artistic works produced during the feudal and renaissance periods. He also covered the realistic movement, ornamental arts, Japanese architecture and sculpture, and its influence on Western civilization. The pages of this volume are not covered only with text – they also feature a good number of illustrations of the key components of Japan's art heritage. Hartmann's Japanese Art is recommended reading for those wishing to learn more about the art in the Land of the Rising Sun without having to deal with highly technical or scholarly nit-picking. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Issued in connection with an exhibition held Feb. 19-July 17, 2011, Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, Mississippi, and Oct. 5, 2011-Jan. 15, 2012, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas.