Page 59 - Studio International - March 1973

familiar with the German painting of the early covered, thatched houses from the Japan sea- Tokugawa shogunate this was the lowest rung of
twentieth century. Moreover, the illustrations coast look as though they are in a completely society and yet, by the 18th century, it was also
have not been chosen with much imagination or different country when compared to the houses the wealthiest. Because they could not hope to
with much awareness of what has already of southern, Pacific areas with bright, white advance on the social scale these people formed
appeared in other books. They are often too cementing around their roof-tiles. a hedonistic, money-chasing society of their own.
small and the colour (as, alas, often in this Ichimatsu Tanaka, author ofjapanese Ink It was they who patronized the pleasure houses
series) is frequently most unsatisfactory. Painting, is an art history. His study, and for them that the Kabuki theatre was
All this is an enormous pity as there is still a translated by Bruce Darling, painstakingly developed. The ukiyoe print makers produced
need for more studies of Expressionism even traces the Chinese origins of the sumie which their work for the merchant class and
though a handful is already available. some westerners might have imagined to be a consequently depicted their lives, their
FRANK WHITFORD purely Japanese art form. Of the three subjects pleasures and their theatre. Consequently the
of these three books it is ink painting which ukiyoe cannot be fully understood without
shows the strongest Chinese influence. In the some knowledge of the people for whom they
Eastern approaches thirteenth century the Japanese were as great were intended.
The Heibonsha Survey of Japanese Art. importers and adapters of foreign culture as they CECILIA DRESSER
Traditional Domestic Ai chitecture of japan by were accused of being in the nineteenth and
Teiji Itoh. 152 pp., I6o illustrations, many in twentieth centuries. Zen was imported from
colour. Japanese Ink Painting: India via China and the Mongol takeover of the Quicker than mistakes
Shubun to Sesshu by Ichimatsu Tanaka. 176 pp., Chinese throne forced some Sung monks to Independent Film-making by Lenny Lipton.
175 illustrations, many in colour. escape to Japan bringing their religion, art and 431 pp, illustrated. Straight Arrow Books.
Traditional Woodblock Prints of japan, by learning with them. Their influence was Limited number of the American edition
Seiichiro Takahashi, I76 pp., strongly felt at the court of the Ashikaga available through Compendium. $5.95, £3.
177 illustrations, many in colour. Weatherhill/ shoguns where the art academy eagerly
Heibonsha. Distributed in UK by Phaidon. assimilated what they taught. Adventurous With the growth of independent film-making,
Each volume £3.25. artists, not content with second-hand knowledge, mostly beginning in the USA in the period after
went to study in the entrenched southern Sung, the Second World War and largely related to
This series is the result of the combined efforts or the victorious Yuan (Mongol) courts. Even the development of 16 mm film and equipment,
of the original publishers, Heibonsha, one of Sesshu who, according to this book, marks the there were bound to be fundamental changes in
Japan's largest and of Weatherhill, a new and highest development in the Japanese style of the the conception of the technique and craft of film.
energetic English-language publisher based in sumie, spent two years in China. Yet, as today, Perhaps what was less predictable was the way
Tokyo. Their object is the introduction of the Japanese did not swallow the foreign in which these changes would extend out from
Japanese culture to the English-speaking public: influence whole. They took only what they the 'experimental/underground' film-makers to
all were originally written for the interested, but liked even when it was not considered the best in affect the methods of the more conventional
not specialist, Japanese reader by Japanese China. Such was the popularity and influence of film industry. Connected with this is the
experts and have been translated with an artist like Mu Ch'i, who combined the emergence in the US of a vast number of film
varying skill by a stable of Americans. discipline of the academies with the free, often schools or courses, seeing film- (and video)
Because of this all three suffer from omissions humorous 'expressions' with which the Zen making as more than a training of a few people
which would not have been difficult monks amused themselves. for the entertainment industry: the first steps
to avoid. Though, for example, some If Tanaka has a tendency to be too art- towards the assumption that media 'literacy' be
Japanophiles may already know that the historical, chronological and therefore a trifle an assumption equal to the ability to read
country is divided into 46 prefectures and seven dull, Seiichiro Takahashi, author of Traditional and write. Given this situation, a book about
'areas' it would have been kind of the publishers Woodblock Prints of japan, errs in the opposite the new methods and techniques was inevitable
to have included a simple map with these direction. By profession an economist, he is one and I expected because of my deep concern
divisions marked. And since this series of the best-known writers about and collectors with the fundamental philosophy and
involves plenty of history an outline of of Japanese woodblock prints and is chairman techniques of independent film-making,
Japanese history could easily have been added. of the Japan Art Academy. He introduces his to find it inevitably inadequate; a way of
Traditional Domestic Architecture of Japan subject from the social background of the print- showing the industry how to use 'underground'
(well translated by Richard L. Gage) gives a makers, and proceeds to leap backwards and innovations. However, I was wrong. Like
thorough study of the minka, or traditional forwards from period to period, from artist to Stan Brakhage, who has written the introduction
homes, tracing their development, noting their artist. 'When one considers that the Ukiyoe' to Lenny Lipton's book, whenever I have been
influence on tea-ceremony architecture, and profession was an almost incestuous one, with asked to give information about film techniques
stressing the wide differences in style from area artists changing names and titles, marrying and to students or people new to film-making I have
to area. The author, an eminent architectural being adopted into each other's families and wished that there was a comprehensive,
historian and critic, has written several books on schools, this acrobatic style of writing leads to practical guide to which I could refer
this subject which have already been translated some confusion. With this book I felt the need them, and I could never find one. 'Independent
into English, the latest of which is the Imperial for yet another chart showing the school and Film-making' is ideal for that purpose. Firstly
Gardens of japan. He is generally light and clear family trees of the various artists. The difficulty it is beautifully clear and simply written with
in his approach, always has the amateur in in following the narrative is not helped by the unambiguous diagrams. Of course you don't
mind, and I was especially impressed by his apparently very literal translation. read it from front through to back, but it
revelations concerning the way in which the Two further weaknesses should perhaps be proceeds pretty much in the order in which
basic unit of measurement, the tatami (straw mentioned here. The author is almost totally you would encounter problems when making a
floor matting), differs from one area of the silent on the subject of the higa, or erotic prints, film, with the most general questions like
country to another. The discussion of the which were made by all the print designers both 8 mm ? super 8 ? 16 mm ? which cameras ? etc.,
various regional stylistic differences should also famous and unknown, and he says equally little first. When I started to make films I found it
enlighten the western reader, especially those about the mentality of the wealthy merchant easier and quicker to learn by mistakes than
British readers who think of Japan as largely a class of the period, whose culture the prints trying to come to terms with the highly
warm country. Some of the pictures of snow- portrayed. According to the dogma of the technical film and photography book
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