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Surveys of Japanese Art by Medium
Calligraphy
For a lucid exposition of the Japanese systems of writing, see "Japanese Language
and Calligraphy," an introductory essay in John M. Rosenfield, Fumiko Cranston,
and Edwin A. Cranston, The Courtly Tradition (Cambridge, Mass.: Fogg Art Museum,
1973). A wider range of calligraphy is illustrated and fully discussed by Yoshiaki
Shimizu and John Rosenfield in Masters of Japanese Calligraphy: 8th-19th Century
(New York: Asia Society Galleries and Japan House Gallery, 1984). These two books
provide the reader with valuable commentaries and with reproductions of many pieces,
but they are limited to works in Western collections. For a broader selection of
illustrations of major works (many in excellent color), see Yujiro Nakata, The
Art of Japanese Calligraphy, translated by Alan Woodhull (New York: Weatherhill,
1973).
Shen Fu, Glenn D. Lowry, and Ann Yonemura, From Concept to Context: Approaches
to Asian and Islamic Calligraphy (Washington, D.C.: Freer Gallery, 1986) includes
a helpful introductory discussion and substantial comments on 16 Japanese calligraphies
ranging from the 12th century to the early 19th. Chinese and Japanese Calligraphy
. . . The Heinz Götze Collection, compiled by Shigemi Komatsu, Kwan S. Wong,
and Fumiko Cranston (Munich: Prestel, 1989) discusses, usually in interesting detail,
some 40 Japanese pieces of varying quality from the 8th to 19th century. On Zen calligraphy,
chiefly Muromachi, see Helmut Brinker and Hiroshi Kanazawa, Zen: Masters of Meditation
in Images and Writing, translated by Andreas Leisinger (Zurich: Artibus Asiae,
1995). Also valuable are the essays by Yoshiaki Shimizu (chiefly on Chinese influences)
and Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis (on the traditions behind contemporary calligraphy)
in Multiple Meanings, edited by J. Thomas Rimer (Washington, D.C.: Library
of Congress, 1986). Something of the Japanese view of calligraphy can be gathered
from a summary of a 17th-century essay on calligraphy in Makoto Ueda, Literary
and Art Theories of Japan (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University Press,
1967).
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