Japanese Art

Description

4 ed. — Boston: Colonial Press, 1907. — 357 p.Carl Sadakichi Hartmann was born in 1867 in Japan to a Japanese woman, Osada, and Carl Herman Oscar Hartmann, a German government and business official. Since his mother died a few months later, the young Hartmann was sent to Hamburg, Germany, with his brother Tanu, to be raised by his paternal grandmother and uncle. He came to the United States in 1882. In 1884 he met Walt Whitman, and in 1898 he met Alfred Stieglitz, two major influences on his life and work. Writing also under the name of Sydney Allen, beginning in 1902, Hartmann was prolific as a critic, poet, and dramatist. Many of his signficiant pieces appeared in Sticglitz’s Camera Notes and Camera Work. In 1902 his well known two volume, A History of American Art was published. In 1923 Hartmann moved to Los Angeles and attempted to become part of the Hollywood crowd. In 1938–1939 he built himself a small place near his daughter, Wistaria, in the California desert. He died on November 21, 1944, on a visit to his eldest daughter, Atma, in St. Petersburg, Florida.Hartmann overstates the case somewhat in claiming in the preface that this is ‘the first history of Japanese Art that attempts to popularize the subject’ in the West. Nonetheless, his tracing of the history of the subject from the seventh century to the modern period is more accurate than not, though the value of the work is greater as a historical document than a dependable source, and some of the errors (the preface refers to the ‘glorious epoch of the Fukugawa Shogunate’, for example) surely raised eyebrows even in 1903. Hartmann claimed later that the work was written in seventeen days, but it remained in print for a quarter century.ContentsEarly Religious PaintingThe Feudal PeriodThe RenaissanceThe Realistic MovementThe Influence of Japanese Art on Western CivilizationJapanese Architecture and SculptureThe Ornamental ArtsModern Japanese ArtBibliographyIndexList of illustrationsShunso. Typical Woman of the Ukio-ye SchoolChang-Yüeh-hu. Kakemonos or Wall Picture of Bodhi-Dharma Crossing the Sea on a ReedMitsunobu. Prince and PrincessLate Tosa School. Orchard in SpringMassanobu. Portrait of the Actor, Ichikawa DanjuroMokké. A TigerKorin. Character PortraitKuniyoshy. A RoninKiyonaga. Picking IrisKunisada. On the RiverHiroshige. A LandscapeHokusai. View of Mount FusiyamaSketches of Cranes for Decorative WorkSilk Embroidery for a ScreenBronze Sword-Guards and Corner-PiscesToriiPagodaDai-Butsu, AsakasaBronze VaseLacquer-WorkKiosai. Council in the Dragon Castle