Rague Beatrix Von. A History of Japanese Lacquerwork

University of Toronto, 2018. — 327 р. — ISBN 978-1-4875-7273-0For some considerable time Japanese lacquerwork has had its share of devotees and collectors in the West. But until now there has been very little to help them take the step from admiration to more exact knowledge, since only a handful of experts have access to the comprehensive, though not always systematic, Japanese literature on the subject, and relatively little has yet been written in any western language a bout the history of this craft.
Anyone interested in lacquerwork is, of course, grateful for the books by Otto Kummel (Das Kunstgewerbe in japan) and Martin Feddersen (Japanisches Kunstgewerbe) which both include a chapter on lacquerwork. But naturally these chapters are too short to trace a development that spanned more than a thousand years. Also, they are written with a heavy bias toward those items that are most accessible to the collector in the West, that is, relatively late pieces. Nor could earlier writers possibly have foreseen the many new and important facts that recent research, mainly by the Japanese, has brought to light.
This book, therefore, is designed to fill a gap. Whenever possible I have tried to link the development of Japanese lacquerwork to dated pieces.
These give a sequence of fixed points of reference which simplify the task of fitting in the numerous other items which, though undated, are significant from an artistic point of view. With this aim in mind I have referred to as many dated objects as possible both in the text and in the illustrations.
(Naturally, in the case of the vast number of small dated medicine boxes and sake bowls of the late period, no attempt has been made to be com-prehensive.) Because I wanted to fit undated works as precisely as possible into my time scale, I have preferred an attribution like 'c. 1400,' for exam-ple, to the less specific 'first half of the Muromachi period.' It is quite likely that not everyone will agree with all the dates I give, but the fact remains that at some stage an attempt at a more accurate system of dating has to be made.
I considered it important to refer occasionally to examples from related arts such as ceramics, metalwork, and textiles. The relationships between the various branches of Japanese applied art have so far been insufficiently explored. However, the examples I have chosen might give some indication of how closely the stylistic phenomena of lacquerwork are connected with the overall development of Japanese art and handicrafts. If these links were to be explored yet further, a clearer light might be thrown on the whole field of applied art.
The numerous and often complicated techniques of lacquerwork have been dealt with as briefly as possible in this book, so as not to interrupt the analysis of stylistic development more than is necessary. This is all the more justified in view of the fact that a book by Kurt Herberts (Das Buch der
ostasiatischen Lackkunst) gives extensive information about the technical as-pects of the craft.
One word more about the choice of illustrations. However tempting it may be in other contexts to show as many unknown works as possible, in a historical analysis, it is essential to give prominence, after the pieces with known dates, to works of artistic merit. The fact that several of these can already be seen in other, usually Japanese, publications should be no reason to preclude their being illustrated here.
I would also like to take this opportunity to express my warm thanks to a number of people.
Without the invaluable aid of the Japanese research referred to in the bibliography, and that I have most extensively evaluated and used, it would have been impossible for me to write this book. But often more illuminating than either books or articles were the discussions I was able to have with Japanese experts and colleagues. Above all my thanks go to Professor Saburo Mizoguchi for the tireless way in which he has helped me ever since my first visit to the National Museum in Tokyo. Time and again he has come to my assistance with word and deed, answered countless questions, and generally smoothed my path. I would also like to thank Professor Yasuji Maeda for turning my.attention to other areas of Japanese applied art, apart from lacquerwork, and Professor Jo Okada who gave me much important information and advice. When it came to the laborious task of assembling the illustrations the help of Mr Hirokazu Arakawa of the National Museum in Tokyo and Mr Motoo Yoshimura of the National Museum in Kyoto proved invaluable.
My special thanks go to the lacquermakers in whose workshops I was able to gain invaluable knowledge, and to all the collectors and museum officials who allowed me both to look at their precious specimens in peace and at such proximity and, where necessary, to reproduce them as illustra-tions for this book. If there are any mistakes in the book, they should certainly not be attributed to any lack of co-operation on the part of those whom I consulted.
Then I would like to thank both the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, whose financial assistance made it possible for the book to appear in its present form, and also the publisher Walter de Gruyter & Co. of Berlin.
Last, but not least, my thanks to Mrs Charlotte Hasse for the long-suffering and reliable way in which she copied one 'final' draft of the manuscript after another.