NATIONAL MUSEUM TOKYO BOOK

 Includes The Tokyo National Museum: Foreword; Preface; History of the Collections; The Departments; The Building; Basic Bibliography; Index of Illustrations; Index of Names; and General Index. Profusely illustrated with 126 color photographs "all reproduced in superb full color by the finest European printing processes." Some very light scattered rubbing to the upper dust jacket spine edge and jacket tip (see photographs). "The National Museum Tokyo, the largest museum in Japan, founded in 1871, contains the most extensive and finest collections of Japanese art in the world. Comprising some 90,000 objects, it ranges over all periods and mediums from prehistoric times to the beginning of the modern era. While the major emphasis is on Japanese art, China is also importantly represented in works of extraordinary quality if more limited in number. From this concentration of masterworks in all mediums emerges in dramatic perspective the succession of art forms and styles of Japan and their frequent interrelations with those of China. Pride of place in this book is given to painting, the major expression of both Japan and China, represented in this museum by no less than 11,000 works. But there are also examples of calligraphy - that sister-art of Far Eastern painting - besides bronzes, sculptures, metalwork, ceramics, lacquers, textiles, archeological treasures. All the great periods of Japanese paintings are show in supreme pieces, many of them classified national treasures. These include some of the great religious paintings of the Heian period, Japan's medieval age of faith. Then come the colorful illustrated scrolls of the Kamakura period, those lively graphic representations of tumultuous historical events. Then the monochrome ink paintings of the Muromachi period when the Japanese, inspired by the spirit of Zen, adopted China's classic mode. Next, one views the resplendent screens and panels of the Momoyama period in dazzling effects of brilliant colors on gold backgrounds. Finally the more subdued poetry of the Ukiyo-e, depicting the daily life of the Edo period. Corresponding to each of these periods are shown objects in those triumphs of technique that in Japan raise pure craftsmanship to the level of major arts: gilt bronzes of the early Asuka period; lacquers of the Heian and Muromachi periods; famous wood sculptures of the Kamakura period; exuberant bird-and-flower porcelains from Kutani, Nabeshima and other celebrated ceramic centers; superb examples of calligraphy ranging from the early rigid "printed" style to the audacious free-form writing of later times. And not to be overlooked are the artifacts of the archaic Japanese cultures, those mysterious earthenware figures and bronzes of the Jomon, Yayoi and Kofun periods." - from the inner front and rear jacket flaps.