Japanese Ghosts and Demons: Art of the Supernatural (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This exhibition catalog examines the extensive body of Japanese folklore and literature dealing with supernatural subjects and the treatment of these subjects in various media (prints, paintings, sculpture, netsuke, masks) and by many artists. There are essays of varying quality on ghosts, demons, and other supernatural phenomena, illustrated with good color and black-and-white plates; each author attempts to connect the artistic treatments of the subjects with social events and daily life of the times, which provides some thought-provoking reading. Not an essential pur chase, but interesting for special col lec tions as a reasonably priced work on a unique subject. Patricia R. Hausman, Williamsburg Regional Lib., Va.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

From the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century, many of Japan's most brilliant artists, including Hiroshige, Hokusai, Yoshitoshi, and Zeshin, allowed their imaginations free rein in creating images of the supernatural world in woodblocks, paintings, books, wooden sculptures, and on screens. This is the first book devoted to the study of the supernatural world and its renditions in Japanese art. The illustrations show a stunning array of Japan's more fiendish figures. Each of the ten chapters focuses on one of the most important themes in Japanese lore, discussing its anthropological meaning and literary and artistic interpretations. 49 color illustrations, 75 black-and-white illustrations.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: George Braziller (April 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807611263
• ISBN-13: 978-0807611265
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #692,674 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous book AND excellent research, June 8, 2006

By	Colin P. Lindsey (Manchester, NH) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I almost hesitate to add a review since there are two other reviews here that do such a fine job. I actually attended the University of Kansas and was therefore able to visit the Spencer Museum of Art and see some of these works on display. I purchased my copy of this book at the museum and used it as part of my source material for a theses I wrote while matriculating at KU, so I am very familiar with this book.

This is a very, very impressive book with loads of gorgeously rendered and reproduced wood-block prints. If you like Japanese art you will wish to have this book simply to look at the pictures. My children actually like to get this book down and look at the pictures, half because it is truly amazing art and half because the art is focused on the creepy-crawly and supernatural. An element of Japanese culture and psychology is viscerally on display in these fine prints and it is easy to see that this form of art is the precursor to the Manga that is so popular today.

This book is much more than a simple visual display though. There is a wealth of information, meticulously researched, presented here on the creatures that make up the pantheon of the eerie and supernatural in medieval Japan. For serious students, or even those with a surfeit of Hobbits just wanting a better grounding in an alternate milieu of the supernatural, this is an excellent tome, well-written, easy-to-follow, and chock-full of information. Buy it for the pictures, buy it for the text, or buy it for both, you won't be disappointed.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a rich feast, both visually and intellectually, June 18, 2003

By	Merrily Baird (atlanta, ga USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As the preface to "Japanese Ghosts and Demons" notes, this book is the fruit of interdisciplinary studies undertaken by the Spencer Museum of Art and the University of Kansas at Lawrence. And it is the results of just such an interdisciplinary approach that have lifted this book out of the realm of an ordinary exhibition catalogue and propelled it into the rarified ranks of an art history classic.

In historical terms, the focus of the book is the Edo period. This long (1615-1868) and peaceful period saw a concatenation of several important trends, including the perfection of the woodblock print, a democratization of art that--for the first time in Japan--served the masses, the rise of the kabuki theater, and a diffusion of popular literature and tales that often focused on the ghostly and the supernatural. The fusion of these trends was most clearly seen in the woodblock prints of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Utagawa Kunisada, and Ichiryusai Kuniyoshi, many of which are reproduced here. These three giants of the late woodblock period not only made a major contribution in documenting the theatrical and literary trends of the Edo period but also provided many of the visual models still employed in Japanese-style tattooing.

Apart from the rich feast of art presented in this book, "Japanese Ghosts and Demons" will nourish the souls of those interested more in the fields of anthropology and comparative religion. Even today, when Japan has emerged as one of the most technologically advanced nations on earth, fundamental cultural beliefs are still strongly informed by a sense of mutability. "Japanese Ghosts and Demons" makes an important contribution to explaining this phenomenon, in which the boundaries between the living and the dead, humankind and animals, the animate and the inanimate, and the sacred and profane are far more permeable than is believed to be the case in the modern West. Several thousand years ago, before the rise of the three great monotheistic religions, most of the world's societies believed in a universe more pregnant with magical possibilities, a type of universe that this book helps us better understand.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books available on Japanese supernatural, December 19, 2003

By	Zack Davisson "All Good Things" (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"Japanese Ghost and Demons" is something I really wish I could have been a part in making. A college with a fine collection of supernatural-themed Japanese art, in a variety of mediums, decides to offer an interdisciplinary study class with each group producing papers on a folklore theme, with supporting artwork from the collection. Brilliant.

Each of the chapters is incredibly insightful, providing a complete education on the topic. Along with the traditional subjects such as the Oni, Ghosts and Tengu, there are many less-often covered subjects such as Sennin: The Immortals of Taoism and Shoki the Demon Queller. I was particularly pleased to learn about Shoki, as I was browsing a print shop in Kyoto and was able to recognize the Demon Queller himself in a few prints.

The plates are, of course, beautiful, and cover an incredible range of medium, from the familiar prints to the drawings, paintings and netsuke carvings. The reproduction quality is high, and the size of the book is "coffee table" size, allowing for nice sized images. The majority of the plates are in full color.

As someone who has read quite a few books on Japanese supernatural folklore, I recommend "Japanese Ghosts and Demons" as one of the best. It would be hard to be disappointed by this treasure.