Enduring Art of Japan [Paperback]

Langdon Warner (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 113 pages
• Publisher: Grove Pr (November 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802131328
• ISBN-13: 978-0802131324
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #916,723 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "What the study of history and artistic creation have in common is a mode of forming images.", June 10, 2008

By 

Crazy Fox (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Enduring Art of Japan (Paperback)

They don't make scholars like Langdon Warner anymore. Harvard professor, Oriental Art expert, and one-time student of Okakura Tenshin, throughout his long career he curated the Asian collections of several different museums, led several archaeological expeditions into Asia (including remote Silk Road locations in the desert) for those museums, worked with the State Department, the second Roberts Commission, and the Allied Occupation during the twentieth century's two world wars, and became something of an urban legend hero in Japan where he was credited with saving Nara and Kyoto (with all their artistic and cultural treasures) from nuclear destruction. Possibly he was one of the models for the character of Indiana Jones as well. And amidst all that he still found the time to write several classic books introducing the American populace to the then all but unknown and inaccessible world of East Asian art--of which "The Enduring Art of Japan" of 1952 is a prime example.

Unfortunately, time has not been kind to this pivotal classic. Well, maybe it's not the years but the mileage; over half a century of study inspired by and founded upon the groundbreaking efforts of folks like Warner have as a matter of course left this book in the dust. Roughly two-thirds of "Enduring Art" is devoted to Warner's efforts to give Japanese art a historical context and significance for his American audience. Often times he gets so absorbed in the history that the art is lost sight of, and his own knowledge of Japanese history is factually inaccurate on several points--here the Fujiwara show up as Shoguns along with the Minamoto, Ashikaga, and Tokugawa; here Nichiren was a reformer of Shingon rather than Tendai, and so on. In general the historical discussion is keyed only in the vaguest and sketchiest of terms to the actual illustration plates so that the relation between the two is not established very successfully, certainly not in a manner that would've been self-evident to his readership. The antiquarian's bias shows up too, since for Warner Japanese art history effectively ends with the beginning of the Edo Period (Ukiyo-e are way off his radar). Also, and this is not his fault, but the historiography is a bit antiquated and the terms of his discourse ("Japanese racial character" for instance) seem embarrassingly quaint now. That said, he also has some keen insights and observations, but these must be culled from the richly eloquent but somewhat unreliable whole.

In the last third of the book Warner leaves off the history and focuses on several key aspects of Japanese art as a whole, and here the book jumps a notch in quality. Warner may have been one of the first scholars to take folk art seriously, and his sustained defense of the value and aesthetic pleasure of Japanese mingei is enjoyable and convincing. His careful consideration of the calligraphic manner in which nature is transmuted into art in Japanese painting is astute and enlightening. And his no-nonsense unpackaging of the tea ceremony, gardening, and Zen makes clear and comprehensible sense of aspects of Japanese culture more opaque and prone to obscurantist twaddle than most.

The 92 illustration plates in the back of the book were state of the art for an affordable paperback in the 1950's. All black & white of course, with more or less adequate resolution. Not impressive by today's standards, but they get the job done. They also show an intriguing range, from standard "national treasure" milestones that inevitably star in any survey of Japanese art to lesser known rarities that in some way stood out to the practiced eye and refined sensibility of Warner himself. These latter are indeed quite interesting and merit our consideration, and Warner's independence and reliance on his own individual taste and judgment is refreshing, salutary, and entirely warranted.

And so "The Enduring Art of Japan" endures yet as a classic. But it does so for the most part based on its cultural historical significance as a document exemplifying America's fascination with Japanese art at a very early and unripe phase. As an intro to Japanese art history it's not so very useful anymore now in the early 21st century; indeed, to unselfconsciously rely on it in that manner would be foolhardy and misleading. The last couple of essays remain more relevant and will reward even the old hand on this subject with fresh insights, though. And if some of Langdon Warner's deeply warm enthusiasm and openness rubs off on the contemporary reader, all the better.