Deco Japan: shaping art & culture, 1920-1945

Abstract

"The vitality of urban Japan in the 1920s and 1930s is expressed through works of art and visual culture that may be grouped under the rubric of art deco. Using nearly 200 objects ranging from matchbook labels to grand paintings, and focusing on works exhibited in Japan's national exhibitions, Deco Japan traces a chapter in Japanese modernism that signals simultaneously the nation's claims to a unique history and its cosmopolitanism. Major themes include both the rise of moga, or modern girl, a barometer of social freedom and cultural realignment, and nationalism, manifest in imperial glory and military strength."--Cover flap.

Contents

Japan and "Art Deco" / Kendall H. Brown -- Art Deco and japonisme / Tim Benton -- On "things Japanese" in the 1930s / Takanami Machiko -- The craftsman's utopia / Kitamura Hitomi -- The modern girl : icon of modernity / Vera Mackie -- Catalogue. Cultural appropriations ; Formal manipulations: abstract forms ; Formal manipulations: natural motifs ; Over and under the sea ; Social expressions: nationalism ; Social expressions: the floating world transformed ; The cultured home.