Alicia Volk

"Volk's impressive study rethinks the East-West binary often reiterated in discussions of Japanese modernism by reinserting local aspects into the universalizing tendencies of modernism itself. The book makes an important contribution to the growing literature on modern Japanese art history by providing an alternative comparative framework for understanding the global development of modernism that decenters Euro-America. Rigorously historical in her critique, Volk destabilizes our understanding of the Japanese experience of modernity through the prism of Yorozu's singular vision of the self, leaving us questioning conventional wisdom and contented to wobble."--Gennifer Weisenfeld, Duke University "In Volk's affectingly stunning and deeply reflective study of the Japanese artist Yorozu Tetsugorō's work between 1910-1930, we have a profoundly historical reminder of how modernism everywhere struggled to meet the demands of the new with the readymades of received artistic practices. In this study of Yorozu's utopian universalist project, Volk has imaginatively broadened our understanding of the modernist moment and perceptively captured its global program to unify art and life, contemporary culture and history."--Harry Harootunian, author of Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture and Community in Interwar Japan

Yorozu Tetsugorō and Japanese Modern Art

In Pursuit of Universalism

Honolulu Academy of Arts

Christine Guth

Emiko Yamanashi

"Japan and Paris demonstrates the deep cross-cultural nature of art in Japan from about 1880 to 1930. Illustrated with masterpieces from Japanese collections by Matisse, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Corot, Cezanne, and Monet, it explores the history of collecting Western art in Japan and its influence on Japanese modern art. In particular, it addresses the development of Western-style modernist impulses as Japan's early interest in the Barbizon School extended to include modes of expression such as Impressionism, Postimpressionism, Symbolism, Cubism, and Fauvism. In addition to showcasing works by some of the best-known French and European painters, works by Japanese artists who were instrumental in the introduction of Western modes of expression to Japan are included, such as Kojima Zenzaburo, Kume Keiichiro, Maeda Kanji, Mitsutani Kunishiro, and Fujita Tsuguharu."

Alicia Volk

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