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ARTS O F
BARBARA BRENNAN F O RD
THE METRO PO LITAN
T H E
J A P A N
MUSEUM O F ART
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin
www.jstor.org
FOREWORD
Japan's
artistic
heritage
is one of
astonishing range
and
longevity.
From its earliest
manifestations,
the
Japanese
artistic
spirit
has been focused on the environs and
implements
of
daily life;
since neolithic times
everyday objects
have been fashioned with
keen
sensitivity
to materials and functional effect. Profound emotion is
frequently
couched in
images
of
nature,
observed with an
intimacy
conditioned
by
life in a land of
dramatic seasonal
change,
where
perils
of
earthquake
and
typhoon
make nature's
bounty precarious
and its
processes
awesome and beautiful. These distinctive
qualities
persist throughout
a
history patterned by cycles
of
receptivity
to outside influences and
subsequent
transformation to
peculiarly Japanese
form.
The Museum's collection of
painting, sculpture, ceramics, metalwork, lacquer,
textiles,
and woodblock
prints spans
over four thousand
years,
from the third
millennium B.C. to the
present,
and
represents Japanese
art more
comprehensively
than
any
other collection in the West.
Although
it defies
generali7ation
in its
diversity,
the
selection
presented
here was chosen to reveal certain distinctive
aspects
of
Japanese
art
and, except
for some well-known
objects
which could not be
excluded,
to introduce
works that
appear
for the first time in the new
galleries.
I am
grateful
to Christine
Guth,
who wrote the text for number
z8,
for
many
insights
on the
collection,
and to Yasuko
Betchaku,
whose keen
eye
for detail
greatly
enhanced the
presentation
of these
objects
in the new
galleries.
Barbara Brennan Ford
Associate Curator of Asian Art
CHRONOLOGY OF
JAPANESE
ART
Jomon 10,000
B.C.-c.
250
B.C.
Yayoi
c.
250
B.C.-A.D.
250
Kofun c. A.D.
2z5-552
Asuka
552-646
Early
Nara
(Hakuho) 646-7o0
Nara
(Tempyo) 7o1-94
Early
Heian
794-898
Late Heian
(Fujiwara) 898-185
Kamakura
1185-1333
Nambokucho
1333-92
Muromachi
1392-1568
Momoyama I568-I6I5
Edo
I615-1867
Meiji I868-I912
3
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin
www.jstor.org