Low Price Guarantee
We Take School POs
Aesthetic Life: Beauty and Art in Modern Japan
Contributor(s): Lippit, Miya Elise Mizuta (Author)

View larger image

ISBN: 0674237307     ISBN-13: 9780674237308
Publisher: Harvard University Press
OUR PRICE: $47.25  

Binding Type: Paperback - See All Available Formats & Editions
Published: January 2019
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks

Click for more in this series: Harvard East Asian Monographs
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | Asia - Japan
- Art | History - Modern (late 19th Century To 1945)
- Literary Criticism | Asian - Japanese
Dewey: 701.170
LCCN: 2016034935
Series: Harvard East Asian Monographs
Physical Information: 0.7" H x 6.9" W x 9.9" L (1.70 lbs) 332 pages
Themes:
- Cultural Region - Japanese
Features: Bibliography, Illustrated, Index
Review Citations: Choice 09/01/2019
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

This study of modern Japan engages the fields of art history, literature, and cultural studies, seeking to understand how the "beautiful woman" (bijin) emerged as a symbol of Japanese culture during the Meiji period (1868-1912). With origins in the formative period of modern Japanese art and aesthetics, the figure of the bijin appeared across a broad range of visual and textual media: photographs, illustrations, prints, and literary works, as well as fictional, critical, and journalistic writing. It eventually constituted a genre of painting called bijinga (paintings of beauties).

Aesthetic Life examines the contributions of writers, artists, scholars, critics, journalists, and politicians to the discussion of the bijin and to the production of a national discourse on standards of Japanese beauty and art. As Japan worked to establish its place in the world, it actively presented itself as an artistic nation based on these ideals of feminine beauty. The book explores this exemplary figure for modern Japanese aesthetics and analyzes how the deceptively ordinary image of the beautiful Japanese woman--an iconic image that persists to this day--was cultivated as a "national treasure," synonymous with Japanese culture.


Contributor Bio(s): Lippit, Miya Elise Mizuta: - Miya Elise Mizuta Lippit is Associate Adjunct Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Art History at the University of Southern California.
 
Customer ReviewsSubmit your own review
 
To tell a friend about this book, you must Sign In First!