The Genius of Japanese Design
Sherman E. Lee, the author of “The Genius of Japanese Design” was an American academic, writer, art historian and expert on Asian art. From this he wrote many books on Asian art forms such as “Japanese Decorative Style”, “Reflections of Reality in Japanese Art”, and “A History of Far Eastern Art”. He lived in Tokyo Japan after his service in WW2 and began cataloging, preserving and protecting Japanese artworks.
What’s most important from this book source is the history and reasons why Japan came to assert their own aesthetic and curated their own style and design look. It shows many examples of Japanese art and how they differed from the Chinese and where you can truly see where Japan took off in their own artistic direction. Sherman Lee discusses in his book on Japanese design what inspirations the Japanese take from their surroundings and social beliefs and how this plays into their own artistic tastes. He covers the natural and social environments that are present within all aspects of their art pieces which will be useful when researching where, why, and how the Japanese art and design aesthetic is so unique and different to the many other countries around the world.
Lee, Sherman E. The Genius of Japanese Design. First ed. Tokyo ; New York: Kodansha International, 1981. Print.
