Nihonga: Transcending the Past : Japanese-Style Painting, 1868-1968.

New York, NY Weatherhill & The Saint Louis Art Museum, 1995. Hardcover First Edition [1995], so stated. First Edition [1995], so stated. Near Fine in Near Fine DJ: Both book and DJ show only minute indications of use. The Book shows just a hint of bumping at the upper corner tips; else flawless; the binding is square and secure; text clean. Free of any ownership names, dates, addresses, notations, inscriptions, stamps, plates, or labels. Virtually 'As New'. The DJ shows only a touch of wear to the corner tips and the mildest rubbing to the panels, with a hint of toning along the front hinge and backstrip, no doubt due to sunning; unclipped. Overall, very close to 'As New'. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. Folio. (11.8 x 9.35 x 1.3 inches). 350 pages. Weight: 4 pounds, 3.5 ounces. Hardback with DJ. A lavishly illustrated study in both colour and black and white. 'Nihonga: Transcending the Past' is a valuable addition to the literature on Japanese arts. 'Nihonga' is a very broad field, and this book, its essays and illustrations, demonstrates very well the breadth of that artistic field. Especially from looking at the illustrations, I now have a better understanding of how Nihonga painting relates to contemporaneous (post-Ukiyo-e) printmaking in Japan. The accompanying scholarly essays, by Ellen P Conant and others, are excellent. The charting of the complicated relationships between Western and Japanese modernism, at the institutional levels as well as in terms of individual artists, is very revealing. The complexity of the 'mutual interference' of Western and Japanese cultural and associated political and economic interests is made very clear.