ব্যবহারকারী:Dark1618/খেলাঘর

Middle Jōmon vase; circa 3000-2000 BCE

জোমন শিল্পকলা

জাপানের প্রথম বাসিন্দা ছিল জোমন (আনু. ১০৫০০ - আনু. ৩০০ খ্রিস্টপূর্বাব্দ) লোকেরা। তারা ছিল যাযাবর শিকারী-সংগ্রহকারী জাতি, পরবর্তিতে কৃষিকাজ শুরু করে এবং শহর গড়ে তুলে। তারা কাঠ দিয়ে সাধারণ ঘর বানাতো, যার মাচা ছিল মাটির অগভীর গর্তে যাতে মাটির উষ্ণতা পেতে পারে। তারা সৌখিনভাবে সাজানো মৃৎপাত্র, 'দগু' নামের মাটির মুর্তি, স্ফটিক গয়না তৈরি করেছিল।

প্রাথমিক জোমন যুগ

প্রাথমিক জোমন যুগের (৫০০০ - ২৫০০ পূর্বাব্দ) নিদর্শন হিসেবে দৈনন্দিন ব্যবহারে জিনিস যেমন- পানি ফুটানোর মৃৎপাত্র পাওয়া যায়। এইসব পাত্রে সমতল তলা এবং বাঁশের মতো উপকরণ দিয়ে তৈরি বিস্তৃত নকশা ছিল।

মধ্য জোমন যুগ

Jar; middle to late Jomon period; 35th-11th century BCE

মধ্য জোমন যুগ (২৫০০-১৫০০ পূর্বাব্দ), প্রাথমিক জোমন যুগ থেকে অনেক ভিন্ন ছিল। এই সময় তারা যাযাবর জীবন ছেড়ে গ্রামে বাস করা শুরু করে। তারা খাদ্য সংগ্রহ এবং শিকারের জন্য বিভিন্ন দরকারি জিনিস তৈরি করা শুরু করে। এই সময়ের পাওয়া অসংখ্য নান্দনিক সিরামিকের মাধ্যমে, এটি স্পষ্ট যে তাদের একটি স্থিতিশীল অর্থনীতি এবং আরও অবসর সময় ছিল। পাত্রের সজ্জা ছিল আগের তুলনায় অনেক বাস্তবসম্মত।

শেষ জোমন যুগ ও তার পরবর্তি সময়

Dogū figurine from the site Ebisuda of Ōsaki, Miyagi prefecture (1000–400 BCE)

শেষ জোমন যুগ ও তার পরবর্তি সময়ে(১৫০০-৩০০ পূর্বাব্দ), আবহাওয়া আরো ঠান্ডা হয়ে ওঠে, যা বাসিন্দাদের পাহাড় থেকে দূরে সরে আস্তে বাধ্য করে। তাদের খাদ্যের প্রধান উৎস ছিল মৎস শিকার। যার ফলে বিভিন্ন মৎস শিকারের অস্ত্র এবং কৌশল আয়ত্তে আনে। এ সময় পাত্রের ব্যবহার বেড়ে গিয়েছিল, যা নির্দেশ করে সকলের নিজস্ব সংগ্রহ ছিল। কিছু পাত্র ধর্মীয় আচারে ব্যবহার হত। এই সময়ের মুর্তিগুলো ছিল মাংশাল ও বড় বড় ছোখবিশিষ্ট।

দগু মুর্তি

দগু ("মাটির মুর্তি") ছিল জোমন যুগের শেষের দিকের মানবীয় এবং পশুর মুর্তি। তারা ওকিনাওয়া ছাড়া সমগ্র জাপানজুড়ে তৈরি হয়েছিল। কিছু পণ্ডিতদের মতে, 'দগু' ছিল মানুষের মুর্তি এবং হয়তো জাদুতে ব্যাবহৃত হতো। দগু ছিল ছোট মাটির আকৃতি, সাধারণত ১০ থেকে ৩০ সেন্টিমিটার (৪ থেকে ১২ ইঞ্চি) উচ্চতার। বেশিরভাগ ছিল নারী, বড় চোখ, ছোট কোমর এবং চওড়া নিতম্ববিশিষ্ট। অনেকের চওড়া পেট ছিল, যা নির্দেশ করে তারা মা দেবী ছিল।

ইয়াওয়ি শিল্পকলা

অভিবাসীদের পরবর্তী তরঙ্গ ছিল ইয়াওই জনগণ। টোকিওর যে জায়গায় তাদের বসতির অবশিষ্টাংশ প্রথম আবিষ্কার হয় তার নাম অনুযায়ী এ নামকরণ করা হয়েছিল। এরা প্রায় ৩০০ খ্রিস্টপূর্বাব্দে জাপানে এসেছিল। তারাই প্রথম জাপানে জলাভূমিতে ধান চাষ, তামার অস্ত্র তৈরি, ব্রোঞ্জের ঘণ্টা (ডোটাকু) এবং চাকা ঘুরিয়ে মৃৎপাত্র তৈরি ও চুল্লিতে পোড়ানো সিরামিক তৈরির বিষয়ে তাদের জ্ঞান নিয়ে আসে।

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  A Yayoi period dōtaku bell, 3rd century CE
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  Shinju-kyo bronze mirror excavated in Tsubai-otsukayama kofun, Yamashiro, Kyoto
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  Ceramic jar from the Yayoi period
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  Various ritual Yayoi potteries from Yoshinogari Site
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  Yayoi storage jar from 500 BCE - 200 CE

কোফুন শিল্পকলা

Tomb of Emperor Nintoku located in Sakai, Japan. The keyhole-like tomb is 486 metres long, 305 metres wide at the bottom and 245 metres in diameter.

জাপানের প্রাচীন ইতিহাসের তৃতীয় পর্যায় হলো কোফুন যুগ (৩০০-৭১০ খ্রিস্টাব্দ), ইয়াওয়ি সংস্কৃতির পরিবর্তিত রূপ, যা হয় অভ্যন্তরীণ উন্নয়ন অথবা বাহ্যিক প্রভাবের কারণে হয়েছে। এই যুগটি এর সমাধীস্থল তৈরির রীতির জন্য বিশেষভাবে উল্লেখযোগ্য। কোফুন যুগ ধরে, সমাধীস্থল তৈরির ধরণ পরিবর্তন হয়েছে, পাহাড়ের চুড়ায় ছোট সমাধীস্থল থেকে সমতলে তৈরি বিশাল সমাধীস্থল। জাপানের সবচেয়ে বড় সমাধীস্থল হলো সম্রাট নিনতোকুর সমাধীস্থল, এখনে ৪৬ টি কবরের ঢিবি রয়েছে এবং এটির আকৃতি অনেকটা চাবির গর্তের মতো। যা, পরবর্তী কোফুন সমাধিগুলির মধ্যে পাওয়া একটি স্বতন্ত্র বৈশিষ্ট্য।

আসুকা এবং নারা শিল্পকলা

A dragon-head pitcher with Pegasus pattern incised, gilded bronze　with silver, Asuka period, 7th century, former Horyu-ji Temple treasures

আসুকা এবং নারা যুগে(৫৪২-৭৮৪ খ্রিস্টাব্দ) জাপান এশিয়া মহাদেশীয় সংস্কৃতির ঢেউ অনুভব করে। এই নামকরন হয় জাপানি সরকারের আসন আসুকা উপত্যকা (৫৪২-৬৪৫) ও নাইরা শহরে (৬৪৫-৭৮৪) ছিল। এই সময় চীন থেকে কোরিয়া হয়ে জাপানে বৌদ্ধধর্ম প্রবেশ করে। এটি তাদের চীনা লেখা, সরকার ব্যবস্থা, স্থাপত্যশৈলীর, শিল্পকলার সাথে মানিয়ে নিতে সাহায্য করে। নারায় অবস্থিত "হরিউ-জি মন্দির" "তোদাই-জি মন্দির" জাপানের প্রাচীন বৌদ্ধধর্মের কয়েকটি নিদর্শন। এই সময়ে ভাষ্কর্য, চিত্রাঙ্কন, কামারশিল্প এর উন্নতি হয়েছিল, যাতে স্পষ্ট চীনা ও কোরীয় সংস্কৃতির প্রাভাব ছিল।

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  Pagoda and Kondō at Hōryū-ji, 8th century
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  Hokkedō at Tōdai-ji, 8th century

হেইয়ান শিল্পকলা

Taizokai (womb realm) Mandala on a silk hanging scroll, 9th century CE

Taishakuten Śakra, 839, Tō-ji

The years from 794 to 1185 are known as the Heian period. It is named after city of Heian-kyō, which is the early name of present-day Kyoto. The Heian period produced many cultural achievements, such as the Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. The power of the Japanese imperial court (that is, the Emperor, his ministers and other important persons) rose. This period is also famous for its art, poetry and literature. The language used in this period was called Late Old Japanese. The writing systems known as Kana emerged at this time. By the end of the 12th century, a number of groups came into being. These groups were highly armed and they fought among themselves. The situation was like a civil war, that is, war among different sections of society. Finally, groups of people called Samurai led society under the political rule of a Shogun. The Heian Period ended due to the Genpei War.

In 794 the capital of Japan was officially transferred to Heian-kyō (present-day Kyoto), where it remained until 1868. The term Heian period refers to the years between 794 and 1185, when the Kamakura shogunate was established at the end of the Genpei War. The period is further divided into the early Heian and the late Heian, or Fujiwara era, the pivotal date being 894, the year imperial embassies to China were officially discontinued.

Early Heian art: In reaction to the growing wealth and power of organized Buddhism in Nara, the priest Kūkai (best known by his posthumous title Kōbō Daishi, 774–835) journeyed to China to study Shingon, a form of Vajrayana Buddhism, which he introduced into Japan in 806. At the core of Shingon worship is mandalas, diagrams of the spiritual universe, which then began to influence temple design. Japanese Buddhist architecture also adopted the stupa, originally an Indian architectural form, in its Chinese-style pagoda.

The temples erected for this new sect were built in the mountains, far away from the Court and the laity in the capital. The irregular topography of these sites forced Japanese architects to rethink the problems of temple construction, and in so doing to choose more indigenous elements of design. Cypress-bark roofs replaced those of ceramic tile, wood planks were used instead of earthen floors, and a separate worship area for the laity was added in front of the main sanctuary.

The temple that best reflects the spirit of early Heian Shingon temples is the Murō-ji (early 9th century), set deep in a stand of cypress trees on a mountain southeast of Nara. The wooden image (also early 9th century) of Shakyamuni, the "historic" Buddha, enshrined in a secondary building at the Murō-ji, is typical of the early Heian sculpture, with its ponderous body, covered by thick drapery folds carved in the honpa-shiki (rolling-wave) style, and its austere, withdrawn facial expression.

Fujiwara art: In the Fujiwara period, Pure Land Buddhism, which offered easy salvation through belief in Amida (the Buddha of the Western Paradise), became popular. This period is named after the Fujiwara family, then the most powerful in the country, who ruled as regents for the Emperor, becoming, in effect, civil dictators. Concurrently, the Kyoto nobility developed a society devoted to elegant aesthetic pursuits. So secure and beautiful was their world that they could not conceive of Paradise as being much different. They created a new form of Buddha hall, the Amida hall, which blends the secular with the religious, and houses one or more Buddha images within a structure resembling the mansions of the nobility.

Byōdō-in Phoenix Hall, Uji, Kyoto

The Hō-ō-dō (Phoenix Hall, completed 1053) of the Byōdō-in, a temple in Uji to the southeast of Kyoto, is the exemplar of Fujiwara Amida halls. It consists of a main rectangular structure flanked by two L-shaped wing corridors and a tail corridor, set at the edge of a large artificial pond. Inside, a single golden image of Amida (আনু. 1053) is installed on a high platform. The Amida sculpture was executed by Jōchō, who used a new canon of proportions and a new technique (yosegi), in which multiple pieces of wood are carved out like shells and joined from the inside. Applied to the walls of the hall are small relief carvings of celestials, the host believed to have accompanied Amida when he descended from the Western Paradise to gather the souls of believers at the moment of death and transport them in lotus blossoms to Paradise. Raigō paintings on the wooden doors of the Hō-ō-dō, depicting the Descent of the Amida Buddha, are an early example of Yamato-e, Japanese-style painting, and contain representations of the scenery around Kyoto.

"YUGIRI" of Genji Monogatari Emaki

E-maki: In the last century of the Heian period, the horizontal, illustrated narrative handscroll, known as e-maki (絵巻, lit. "picture scroll"), came to the fore. Dating from about 1130, the Genji Monogatari Emaki, a famous illustrated Tale of Genji represents the earliest surviving yamato-e handscroll, and one of the high points of Japanese painting. Written about the year 1000 by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting to the Empress Shōshi, the novel deals with the life and loves of Genji and the world of the Heian court after his death. The 12th-century artists of the e-maki version devised a system of pictorial conventions that convey visually the emotional content of each scene. In the second half of the century, a different, livelier style of continuous narrative illustration became popular. The Ban Dainagon Ekotoba (late 12th century), a scroll that deals with an intrigue at court, emphasizes figures in active motion depicted in rapidly executed brush strokes and thin but vibrant colors.

E-maki also serve as some of the earliest and greatest examples of the otoko-e ("men's pictures") and onna-e ("women's pictures") styles of painting. There are many fine differences in the two styles, appealing to the aesthetic preferences of the genders. But perhaps most easily noticeable are the differences in subject matter. Onna-e, epitomized by the Tale of Genji handscroll, typically deals with court life, particularly the court ladies, and with romantic themes. Otoko-e often recorded historical events, particularly battles. The Siege of the Sanjō Palace (1160), depicted in the "Night Attack on the Sanjō Palace" section of the Heiji Monogatari handscroll is a famous example of this style.

কামাকুরা শিল্পকলা

Muchaku by Unkei, Kōfuku-ji, 1212, National Treasure

In 1180, a war broke out between the two most powerful warrior clans: the Taira and the Minamoto; five years later the Minamoto emerged victorious and established a de facto seat of government at the seaside village of Kamakura, where it remained until 1333. With the shift of power from the nobility to the warrior class, the arts had to satisfy a new audience: men devoted to the skills of warfare, priests committed to making Buddhism available to illiterate commoners, and conservatives, the nobility and some members of the priesthood who regretted the declining power of the court. Thus, realism, a popularizing trend, and a classical revival characterize the art of the Kamakura period. In the Kamakura period, Kyoto and Nara remained the centres of artistic production and high culture.

Sculpture: The Kei school of sculptors, particularly Unkei, created a new, more realistic style of sculpture. The two Niō guardian images (1203) in the Great South Gate of the Tōdai-ji in Nara illustrate .Unkei's dynamic supra-realistic style. The images, about 8 m (about 26 ft) tall, were carved of multiple blocks in a period of about three months, a feat indicative of a developed studio system of artisans working under the direction of a master sculptor. Unkei's polychromed wood sculptures (1208, Kōfuku-ji, Nara) of two Indian sages, Muchaku and Seshin, the legendary founders of the Hossō sect, are among the most accomplished realistic works of the period; as rendered by Unkei, they are remarkably individualized and believable images. One of the most famous works of this period is an Amitabha Triad (completed in 1195), in Jōdo-ji in Ono, created by Kaikei, Unkei's successor.

Calligraphy and painting: The Kegon Engi Emaki, the illustrated history of the founding of the Kegon sect, is an excellent example of the popularizing trend in Kamakura painting. The Kegon sect, one of the most important in the Nara period, fell on hard times during the ascendancy of the Pure Land sects. After the Genpei War (1180–1185), Priest Myōe of Kōzan-ji sought to revive the sect and also to provide a refuge for women widowed by the war. The wives of samurai had been discouraged from learning more than a syllabary system for transcribing sounds and ideas (see kana), and most were incapable of reading texts that employed Chinese ideographs (kanji).

Thus, the Kegon Engi Emaki combines passages of text, written with a maximum of easily readable syllables, and illustrations that have the dialogue between characters written next to the speakers, a technique comparable to contemporary comic strips. The plot of the e-maki, the lives of the two Korean priests who founded the Kegon sect, is swiftly paced and filled with fantastic feats such as a journey to the palace of the Ocean King, and a poignant mom story.

A work in a more conservative vein is the illustrated version of Murasaki Shikibu's diary. E-maki versions of her novel continued to be produced, but the nobility, attuned to the new interest in realism yet nostalgic for past days of wealth and power, revived and illustrated the diary in order to recapture the splendor of the author's times. One of the most beautiful passages illustrates the episode in which Murasaki Shikibu is playfully held prisoner in her room by two young courtiers, while, just outside, moonlight gleams on the mossy banks of a rivulet in the imperial garden.

মুরোমাচি শিল্পকলা

During the Muromachi period (1338–1573), also called the Ashikaga period, a profound change took place in Japanese culture. The Ashikaga clan took control of the shogunate and moved its headquarters back to Kyoto, to the Muromachi district of the city. With the return of government to the capital, the popularizing trends of the Kamakura period came to an end, and cultural expression took on a more aristocratic, elitist character. Zen Buddhism, the Ch'an sect traditionally thought to have been founded in China in the 6th century, was introduced for a second time into Japan and took root.

Karesansui of Ryōan-ji, Kyoto

Painting: Because of secular ventures and trading missions to China organized by Zen temples, many Chinese paintings and objects of art were imported into Japan and profoundly influenced Japanese artists working for Zen temples and the shogunate. Not only did these imports change the subject matter of painting, but they also modified the use of color; the bright colors of Yamato-e yielded to the monochromes of painting in the Chinese manner, where paintings generally only have black and white or different tones of a single color.

The hungry ghosts of Kyoto

Typical of early Muromachi painting is the depiction by the priest-painter Kao (active early 15th century) of the legendary monk Kensu (Hsien-tzu in Chinese) at the moment he achieved enlightenment. This type of painting was executed with quick brush strokes and a minimum of detail. Catching a Catfish with a Gourd (early 15th century, Taizō-in, Myōshin-ji, Kyoto), by the priest-painter Josetsu (active আনু. 1400), marks a turning point in Muromachi painting. Executed originally for a low-standing screen, it has been remounted as a hanging scroll with inscriptions by contemporary figures above, one of which refers to the painting as being in the "new style". In the foreground a man is depicted on the bank of a stream holding a small gourd and looking at a large slithery catfish. Mist fills the middle ground, and the background mountains appear to be far in the distance. It is generally assumed that the "new style" of the painting, executed about 1413, refers to a more Chinese sense of deep space within the picture plane.

The foremost artists of the Muromachi period are the priest-painters Shūbun and Sesshū. Shūbun, a monk at the Kyoto temple of Shōkoku-ji, created in the painting Reading in a Bamboo Grove (1446) a realistic landscape with deep recession into space. Sesshū, unlike most artists of the period, was able to journey to China and study Chinese painting at its source. Landscape of the Four Seasons (Sansui Chokan; আনু. 1486) is one of Sesshu's most accomplished works, depicting a continuing landscape through the four seasons.

আজুছি-মোমোয়ামা শিল্পকলা

Himeji Castle, built in 1580-1609

In the Azuchi–Momoyama period (1573–1603), a succession of military leaders, such as Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, attempted to bring peace and political stability to Japan after an era of almost 100 years of warfare. Oda, a minor chieftain, acquired power sufficient to take de facto control of the government in 1568 and, five years later, to oust the last Ashikaga shōgun. Hideyoshi took command after Oda's death, but his plans to establish hereditary rule were foiled by Ieyasu, who established the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603.

Cypress Trees Byōbu, folding screen by Kanō Eitoku, 1590

Painting: The most important school of painting in the Momoyama period was that of the Kanō school, and the greatest innovation of the period was the formula, developed by Kanō Eitoku, for the creation of monumental landscapes on the sliding doors enclosing a room. The decoration of the main room facing the garden of the Jukō-in, a subtemple of Daitoku-ji (a Zen temple in Kyoto), is perhaps the best extant example of Eitoku's work. A massive ume tree and twin pines are depicted on pairs of sliding screens in diagonally opposite corners, their trunks repeating the verticals of the corner posts and their branches extending to left and right, unifying the adjoining panels. Eitoku's screen, Chinese Lions, also in Kyoto, reveals the bold, brightly colored style of painting preferred by the samurai.

Hasegawa Tōhaku, a contemporary of Eitoku, developed a somewhat different and more decorative style for large-scale screen paintings. In his Maple Screen (楓図), now in the temple of Chishaku-in (ja:智積院), Kyoto, he placed the trunk of the tree in the center and extended the limbs nearly to the edge of the composition, creating a flatter, less architectonic work than Eitoku, but a visually gorgeous painting. His sixfold screen, Pine Wood (松林図), is a masterly rendering in monochrome ink of a grove of trees enveloped in mist.

এদো যুগের শিল্পকলা

Wind God and Thunder God, Tawaraya Sōtatsu, 17th century

The Tokugawa shogunate gained undisputed control of the government in 1603 with a commitment to bring peace and economic and political stability to the country; in large measure it was successful. The shogunate survived until 1867, when it was forced to capitulate because of its failure to deal with pressure from Western nations to open the country to foreign trade. One of the dominant themes in the Edo period was the repressive policies of the shogunate and the attempts of artists to escape these strictures. The foremost of these was the closing of the country to foreigners and the accoutrements of their cultures, and the imposition of strict codes of behaviour affecting every aspect of life, the clothes one wore, the person one married, and the activities one could or should not pursue.

In the early years of the Edo period, however, the full impact of Tokugawa policies had not yet been felt, and some of Japan's finest expressions in architecture and painting were produced: Katsura Palace in Kyoto and the paintings of Tawaraya Sōtatsu, pioneer of the Rinpa school.

Circuit style Japanese garden Kōraku-en in Okayama, begun in 1700

Woodblock printing: Woodblock prints were originally used to translate Buddhist scriptures in the eighth century in Japan. Woodblock printing consist of the engraving of images or pictures on a piece of wood, which is then pressed against a piece of paper. In the eighth century woodblock was considered a convenient method of the reproduction of printed text until further innovations allowed for color to be translated on paper or better known as Nishik-e prints. Wood block printing was the common method of printing from the eleventh until the nineteenth century. Nishiki-e prints produced goods such as calendars that were commonly sold to wealthy members of society during the Edo period. In the Edo period these prints were depicted events and scenes of prominent actors. Ukiyo then was associated to woodblock printing in the early Edo period. These Ukiyo paintings depicted daily lives of prominent members of society. Ukiyo first started out as hand sculpted scrolls depicted life as a normal commoner.

Architecture: Katsura Detached Palace, built in imitation of Genji's palace, contains a cluster of shoin buildings that combine elements of classic Japanese architecture with innovative restatements. The whole complex is surrounded by a beautiful garden with paths for walking. Many of powerful daimyōs (feudal lords) built a Circuit style Japanese garden in the territory country, and competed for the beauty.

Painting: Sōtatsu evolved a superb decorative style by re-creating themes from classical literature, using brilliantly colored figures and motifs from the natural world set against gold-leaf backgrounds. One of his finest works is the pair of screens, Waves at Matsushima, in the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. A century later, Kōrin reworked Sōtatsu's style and created visually gorgeous works uniquely his own. Perhaps his finest are the screen paintings of Red and White Plum Blossoms.

Sculpture: The Buddhist monk Enkū carved 120,000 Buddhist images in a rough, individual style.

Three Beauties of the Present Day, by Utamaro, আনু. 1793

The print Red Fuji from Hokusai's series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji

Sudden Shower at the Atake Bridge, Hiroshige, 1856

Ukiyo-e and nanga (bunjinga)

মূল নিবন্ধসমূহ: Ukiyo-e ও Nanga (Japanese painting)

The school of art best known in the West is that of the ukiyo-e paintings and woodblock prints of the demimonde, the world of the kabuki theater and the pleasure districts. Ukiyo-e prints began to be produced in the late 17th century; in 1765 Harunobu produced the first polychrome print. Print designers of the next generation, including Torii Kiyonaga and Utamaro, created elegant and sometimes insightful depictions of courtesans.

In the 19th century the dominant figures were Hokusai and Hiroshige, the latter a creator of romantic and somewhat sentimental landscape prints. The odd angles and shapes through which Hiroshige often viewed landscape, and the work of Kiyonaga and Utamaro, with its emphasis on flat planes and strong linear outlines, had a profound impact on such Western artists as Edgar Degas and Vincent van Gogh. Via artworks held in Western museums, these same printmakers would later exert a powerful influence on the imagery and aesthetic approaches used by early Modernist poets such as Ezra Pound, Richard Aldington and H.D.

A school of painting contemporary with ukiyo-e was nanga, or bunjinga, a style based on paintings executed by Chinese scholar-painters. Just as ukiyo-e artists chose to depict figures from life outside the strictures of the Tokugawa shogunate, bunjin artists turned to Chinese culture. The exemplars of this style are Ike no Taiga, Yosa Buson, Tanomura Chikuden, and Yamamoto Baiitsu (ja:山本梅逸).

Ceramics

মূল নিবন্ধসমূহ: Japanese pottery and porcelain ও Japanese export porcelain

Traditional, mostly stoneware, styles continued in many parts of Japan, but Japanese ceramics were transformed around the start of the Edo period, by a large influx of Korean potters, captured or persuaded to emigrate in the course of the Japanese invasions of Korea in the 1590s. Many of these were settled on the southern island of Kyushu, and they brought with them experience of versions of the Chinese-style chambered climbing kiln, called noborigama in Japan, which allowed high temperatures with more precise control. By around 1620 they had discovered deposits of kaolinite, and started to make porcelain for the first time in Japan. The early wares (called "Early Imari") were relatively small and imitated the Chinese underglaze blue and white porcelain, which Japan had been importing for some time.

The porcelain industry greatly expanded in the late 1650s, as the collapse of the Chinese industry from civil war led to very large orders from the Chinese traders and the Dutch East India Company, by then the traders only permitted to do business in Japan. The first great period of Japanese export porcelain lasted until about the 1740s, and the great bulk of Japanese porcelain was made for export, mostly to Europe, but also the Islamic world to the west and south of Japan. Japanese pottery is among the finest in the world.

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  Ko-Kutani (old Kutani) five colours Iroe type sake ewer with bird and flower design in overglaze enamel, Edo period, 17th century
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  Ko-Imari dish, 1700–1740

Lacquerware:

মূল নিবন্ধ: Japanese lacquerware

With the development of economy and culture, the artistic quality of lacquered furniture has improved. Hon'ami Kōetsu and Ogata Kōrin brought the designs of the Rinpa school of painting into lacquerware. From the middle of the Edo period, inrō for portable medicine containers began to be decorated gorgeously with maki-e and raden, and it became popular among samurai class and wealthy merchants in the chōnin class, and at the end of the Edo period, it changed from practical accessories to art collections. The export of lacquerware continued following the Azuchi-Momoyama period. Marie Antoinette and Maria Theresa are known as collectors of Japanese lacquerware in this period.

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  Writing lacquer box with Irises at Yatsuhashi, by Ogata Kōrin. National Treasure

যুদ্ধ পূর্ব যুগের শিল্পকলা

আরও তথ্যের জন্য দেখুন: Meiji (era) § Art

When the Emperor of Japan regained ruling power in 1868, Japan was once again invaded by new and alien forms of culture. During the Prewar period, The introduction of Western cultural values led to a dichotomy in Japanese art, as well as in nearly every other aspect of culture, between traditional values and attempts to duplicate and assimilate a variety of clashing new ideas. This split remained evident in the late 20th century, although much synthesis had by then already occurred, and created an international cultural atmosphere and stimulated contemporary Japanese arts toward ever more innovative forms.

The government took an active interest in the art export market, promoting Japanese arts at a succession of world's fairs, beginning with the 1873 Vienna World's Fair. As well as heavily funding the fairs, the government took an active role organising how Japan's culture was presented to the world. It created a semi-public company — the Kiritsu Kosho Kaisha (First Industrial Manufacturing Company) — to promote and commercialize exports of art and established the Hakurankai Jimukyoku (Exhibition Bureau) to maintain quality standards. For the 1876 Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia, the Japanese government created a Centennial Office and sent a special envoy to secure space for the 30,000 items that would be displayed. The Imperial Household also took an active interest in arts and crafts, commissioning works ("presentation wares") as gifts for foreign dignitaries. In 1890, the Teishitsu Gigeiin (Artist to the Imperial Household) system was created to recognise distinguished artists; seventy were appointed from 1890 to 1944. Among these were the painter and lacquer artist Shibata Zeshin, ceramicist Makuzu Kōzan, painter Hashimoto Gahō, and cloisonné enamel artist Namikawa Yasuyuki.

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  Byōbu Dragon and tiger (竜虎図) left side, 1895, by Hashimoto Gahō
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  Byōbu Dragon and tiger right side, 1895, by Hashimoto Gahō

As Western imports became popular, demand for Japanese art declined within Japan itself. In Europe and America, the new availability of Japanese art led to a fascination for Japanese culture; a craze known in Europe as Japonisme. Imperial patronage, government sponsorship, promotion to new audiences, and Western technology combined to foster an era of Japanese artistic innovation. In the decorative arts, Japanese artists reached new levels of technical sophistication.

Today, Masayuki Murata owns more than 10,000 Meiji art works and is one of the most enthusiastic collectors. From that time, most of the excellent works of Meiji Art were bought by foreign collectors and only a few of them remained in Japan, but because he bought back many works from foreign countries and opened the Kiyomizu Sannenzaka Museum, the study and reevaluation of Meiji Art rapidly advanced in Japan from the 21st century. Nasser Khalili is also one of the world's most dedicated collectors of Meiji art, and his collection encompasses many categories of Meiji art. The Japanese Imperial Family also owns excellent works of Meiji Art, some of which were donated to the state and are now stored in the Museum of the Imperial Collections.

Architecture and garden

Garden of Murin-an, designed by Jihei Ogawa in 1894–1898

By the early 20th century, European art forms were well introduced and their marriage produced notable buildings like the Tokyo Train Station and the National Diet Building that still exist today. Tokyo Station, a building of Giyōfū architecture, full of bricks and pseudo-European style. This style of building was built in urban areas.

Many artistic new Japanese gardens were built by Jihei Ogawa.

Painting

Mr Kume [Kume Keiichiro], by Kuroda Seiki, Kuroda Kinenkan

The first response of the Japanese to Western art forms was open-hearted acceptance, and in 1876 the Technological Art School (ja:工部美術学校) was opened, employing Italian instructors to teach Western methods. The second response was a pendulum swing in the opposite direction spearheaded by Okakura Kakuzō and the American Ernest Fenollosa, who encouraged Japanese artists to retain traditional themes and techniques while creating works more in keeping with contemporary taste. This was a strategy that eventually served to extend the influence of Japanese art as far as Calcutta, London, and Boston in the years leading up to World War I. Out of these two poles of artistic theory—derived from Europe and from East Asia respectively—developed yōga ("Western-style painting") and Nihonga ("Japanese painting"), categories that have maintained currency.

Enamels

Flower and bird pattern vase by Namikawa Yasuyuki

During the Meiji era, Japanese cloisonné enamel reached a technical peak, producing items more advanced than any that had existed before. The period from 1890 to 1910 was known as the "Golden age" of Japanese enamels. Artists experimented with pastes and with the firing process to produce ever larger blocks of enamel, with less need for cloisons (enclosing metal strips). Thus enamels became a more pictorial medium, with designs similar to, or copied from, traditional paintings. Enamels with a design unique to Japan, in which flowers, birds and insects were used as themes, became popular. In particular, the works of Namikawa Yasuyuki and Namikawa Sōsuke were exhibited at world's fairs and won many awards. Along with the two Namikawa, the Ando Cloisonné Company has produced many high-quality cloisonne. Japanese enamels were regarded as unequalled thanks to the new achievements in design and colouring.

Lacquerware

Maki-e Fuji Tagonoura, Shibata Zeshin, 1872

The Meiji era saw a renewed interest in lacquer as artists developed new designs and experimented with new textures and finishes. Maki-e (decorating the lacquer in gold or silver dust) was the most common technique for quality lacquerware in this period. Shibata Zeshin was a lacquerer who gained a high reputation for his works from the Bakumatsu to the Meiji period. Lacquerware called Shibayama and Somada, created in the Edo period, became popular for its showy style, inlaid with gold, silver, shellfish, ivory, and colorful metal and glass, and reached its peak during this period. Lacquer from Japanese workshops was recognised as technically superior to what could be produced anywhere else in the world.

Metalwork

Koro, silver decorated with precious metals and rock crystal, 1890

At the start of the Meiji era, Japanese metalwork was almost totally unknown outside the country, unlike lacquer and porcelain which had previously been exported. Metalwork was connected to Buddhist practice, for example in the use of bronze for temple bells and incense cauldrons, so there were fewer opportunities for metalworkers once Buddhism was displaced as the state religion. International exhibitions brought Japanese cast bronze to a new foreign audience, attracting strong praise. The past history of samurai weaponry equipped Japanese metalworkers to create metallic finishes in a wide range of colours. By combining and finishing copper, silver and gold in different proportions, they created specialised alloys including shakudō and shibuichi. With this variety of alloys and finishes, an artist could give the impression of full-colour decoration.

Ivory carving

Basket of Flowers. circa 1900, Meiji period. Khalili Collection of Japanese Art.

In the Meiji period, Japanese clothes began to be westernized and the number of people who wore kimono decreased, so the craftsmen who made netsuke and kiseru with ivory and wood lost their demand. Therefore, they tried to create a new field, ivory sculptures for interior decoration, and many elaborate works were exported to foreign countries or purchased by the Imperial Family. In particular, the works of Ishikawa Komei and Asahi Gyokuzan won praise in Japan.

Porcelain and earthenware

Earthenware bowl by Yabu Meizan, circa 1910

Technical and artistic innovations of the Meiji era turned porcelain into one of the most internationally successful Japanese decorative art forms. Satsuma ware was a name originally given to pottery from Satsuma province, elaborately decorated with gilt and enamel. These wares were highly praised in the West. Seen in the West as distinctively Japanese, this style actually owed a lot to imported pigments and Western influences, and had been created with export in mind. Workshops in many cities raced to produce this style to satisfy demand from Europe and America, often producing quickly and cheaply. So the term "Satsuma ware" came to be associated not with a place of origin but with lower-quality ware created purely for export. Despite this, artists such as Yabu Meizan and Makuzu Kōzan maintained the highest artistic standards while also successfully exporting. From 1876 to 1913, Kōzan won prizes at 51 exhibitions, including the World's fair and the National Industrial Exhibition.

Textiles

A composite imaginary view of Japan: silk textile artwork

The 1902 edition of Encyclopædia Britannica wrote, "In no branch of applied art does the decorative genius of Japan show more attractive results than that of textile fabrics, and in none has there been more conspicuous progress during recent years." Very large, colourful pictorial works were being produced in Kyoto. Embroidery had become an art form in its own right, adopting a range of pictorial techniques such as chiaroscuro and aerial perspective.

যুদ্ধ পরবর্তী যুগের শিল্পকলা

Immediately following Japan's defeat in World War II in 1945, large numbers of Japanese artists fell under the influence of, or even joined, the Japan Communist Party, which had just been legalized by the U.S.-led military occupation of Japan after many years of suppression by the prewar and wartime Japanese police. This had to do with the success of the Communist Party had in peddling the notion in the early postwar years that the party had been the only group in Japan to have resisted wartime militarism. In addition, the Japanese word for "vanguard" (前衛, zen'ei), as in "vanguard of the communist revolution," happens to be the same word used for "avant-garde" as in the artistic avant-garde. The Japan Communist Party soon came to dominate the major art societies and exhibitions in Japan, and thus the predominant form of art in the immediate aftermath of the war was socialist realism that depicted the suffering of the poor and the nobility of the working class, in line with Communist Party doctrine that all art should serve the purpose of advancing the cause of revolution. In 1952, the Communist Party even ordered artists such as Hiroshi Katsuragawa and other members of the newly formed Avant-Garde Art Association (前衛美術会, Zen'ei Bijutsukai) out into the mountains to produce socialist realist art in support of "mountain guerrilla squads" that were attempting to foment a violent revolution in Japan.

The 1950s: Struggling to break free of socialist realism

Over the course of the 1950s, many Japanese artists became increasingly disillusioned with the rigid and limited definition of "art" enforced by the Communist Party. However, due to the ongoing preeminence of Communist Party members and supporters in the senior ranks of artistic societies and exhibition juries, artists found it extremely difficult to even show their art unless they conformed to the Party's guidelines. Some artists shied away from formal public exhibitions. Others sought recognition, financial support, and opportunities to show their art overseas, such as the Gutai group of conceptual artists, founded in 1954. Still other artists made use of the few unjuried, "independent" exhibitions in Japan, such as the Yomiuri Indépendant Exhibition sponsored by the Yomiuri Shimbun, which anyone could enter.

A final straw came with the massive 1960 Anpo Protests against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (known as "Anpo" in Japanese"), due to the extremely passive role played by the supposedly "vanguard" Communist Party. When the protests failed to stop the treaty, a round of recriminations led to further disillusionment with the Communist Party and socialist realist art, causing many more artists to break away from the Party's influence.

The 1960s: An explosion of new genres

With the dominance of socialist realism fading, the 1960s witnessed an explosion of new art forms in Japan, as the arts expanded in new directions that might best be termed "postmodern." Artist collectives such as Neo-Dada Organizers, Zero Dimension, and Hi-Red Center explored concepts such as "non-art" and "anti-art," and conducted a variety of audacious "events," "happenings," and other forms of performance art designed to erode the boundaries between art and daily life. The Mono-ha group similarly pushed the boundaries dividing art, space, landscape, and the environment. Other artists, such as graphic designer Tadanori Yokoo, drew inspiration from 1960s counterculture and the explosion of new forms of adult-oriented manga comics. In the performing arts, Tatsumi Hijikata pioneered a new form of postmodern dance called Butoh, and playwrights such as Jūrō Kara and Satō Makoto created the Angura style of radical "underground" theater. And in photography, photographers such as Daidō Moriyama pioneered an extremely influential new school of postwar photography that emphasized spontaneity over carefully staged composition and celebrated the characteristics "are, bure, bokeh" (literally "rough, blurred, out-of-focus").

The proliferation of new types of art was supported by the tremendous growth of Japan's economy in the 1960s, remembered as the "Japanese economic miracle." Over the course of the 1960s, the Japanese economy grew by over 10% per year. Rising wealth created a new class of consumers who could afford to spend money on art and support different types of art and artists. For the first time in Japan's modern history, it became viable for significant numbers of artists to make a living purely through selling their art. The 1960s construction boom in Japan, which leveled the old wood-and-paper traditional Japanese architecture and replaced it with sparkling mega-cities of glass and steel, helped inspire brand new schools of Japanese architecture, such as the Metabolism (architecture) movement led by Kenzō Tange, that boldly broke free from conventional models and proved influential around the world.

At the same time, however, the art world remained dominated by cliques that promoted the works of certain (usually male) artists over others. As it became much easier for Japanese to travel overseas in the 1960s, some female artists such as Yayoi Kusama and Yoko Ono found better reception overseas, and decamped for artistic centers such as London, Paris, and New York, as did many male artists as well.

The triumph of the new forms of Japanese art was cemented at the 1970 Osaka World's Fair, where dozens of avant-garde and conceptual artists were hired to design pavilions and artistic experiences for fair-goers. Japanese avant-garde art had gone global, and had become something even the conservative government was proud to display to the world.

The 1970s and 1980s: Riding the economic bubble

The 1970s and 1980s saw Japanese art continue in many of the directions begun in the 1950s and 1960s, but often with much bigger budgets and more expensive materials, as Japan's economy kept rapidly expanding, and eventually grew into one of the largest economic bubbles in history. With Japanese currency becoming incredibly strong in the wake of the 1985 Plaza Accord, Japanese individuals and institutions became major players in the international art market. Extraordinarily wealthy Japanese mega-corporations began constructing their own private art museums and acquiring collections of modern and contemporary art, and Japanese artists greatly benefited from these expenditures as well.

In particular, artistic production continued to trend away from traditional painting and sculpture in the direction of graphic design, pop art, wearable art, performance art, conceptual art, and installation art. Various types of "hybrid" art increasingly came into vogue. As technology advanced, artists increasingly incorporated electronics, video, computers, synthesized music and sounds, and video games into their art. The aesthetics of manga and anime, which so many younger artists had grown up immersed in, exerted an increasing if sometimes quite subtle influence. Above all, artists eschewed anything redolent of "high art" or "fine art" in favor of the personal, the eclectic, the fantastic or phantasmagoric, and the playful. In edition, female artists such as Mika Yoshizawa became more and more accepted and supported by the art world in Japan.

Contemporary art in Japan

Japanese contemporary art takes as many forms and expresses as many different ideas as worldwide contemporary art in general. It ranges from advertisements, anime, video games, and architecture as already mentioned, to sculpture, painting, and drawing in all their myriad forms. Japanese artists have made especially notable contributions to global contemporary art in the fields of architecture, video games, graphic design, fashion, and perhaps above all, animation. While anime at first were derived primarily from manga stories, diverse anime abounds today, and many artists and studios have risen to great fame as artists; Hayao Miyazaki and the artists and animators of Studio Ghibli are generally regarded to be among the best the anime world has to offer.

At the same time, many Japanese artists continue to use traditional Japanese artistic techniques and materials inherited from premodern times, such as traditional forms of Japanese paper and ceramics and painting with black and color ink on paper or silk. Some of these artworks depict traditional subject matters in traditional styles, while others explore new and different motifs and styles, or create hybrids of traditional and contemporary art forms, while using traditional media or materials. Still others eschew native media and styles, embracing Western oil paints or any number of other forms.

In sculpture, the same holds true; some artists stick to the traditional modes, some doing it with a modern flair, and some choose Western or brand new modes, styles, and media. Yo Akiyama is just one of many modern Japanese sculptors. He works primarily in clay pottery and ceramics, creating works that are very simple and straightforward, looking like they were created out of the earth itself. Another sculptor, using iron and other modern materials, built a large modern art sculpture in the Israeli port city of Haifa, called Hanabi (Fireworks). Nahoko Kojima is a contemporary Kirie artist who has pioneered the technique of Paper Cut Sculpture which hangs in 3D.

Takashi Murakami is arguably one of the most well-known Japanese modern artists in the Western world. Murakami and the other artists in his studio create pieces in a style, inspired by anime, which he has dubbed "superflat". His pieces take a multitude of forms, from painting to sculpture, some truly massive in size. But most if not all show very clearly this anime influence, utilizing bright colors and simplified details.

Yayoi Kusama, Yoshitomo Nara, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Chiharu Shiota, Daidō Moriyama, Mariko Mori, Aya Takano, and Tabaimo are considered significant artists in the field of contemporary Japanese art. The Group 1965, an artists' collective, counts contemporary artist Makoto Aida among its members.