Introduction

Seifu, Blue Wind, echoes with a sense of fresh beginnings. Throughout the twentieth century Japanese artists looked into the wells of their culture for inspiration, just as they looked to the wider world for their place in the stream of modernism. This tension between tradition and innovation unfolded with amazing creativity in the arts.

The work artists created answers in itself the question of what it is to be Japanese and modern. These answers change dramatically across the century, and at any one time between one artist and another. A loyalty to one's craft, to the techniques developed over time informs the best of their art. Often a fresh way of looking at the world found expression in imagery from the past, associations that balance stylization and abstraction.

In this our third catalogue you will again find a visual miscellany of paintings and objects that speak to us. A rough time line runs through the book, abandoned for affinities of medium or imagery, or to suggest interesting contrasts. The first part we devote to photographs of the art, linked to the text by number. The second part (beginning on page 98) covers the text or background information, referenced by item number. Reduced photographs of the illustrated art float with the text as a visual guide.

Working in the first decades of the twentieth century, Imai Oshin inscribed Seifu on a screen for Sencha Tea Ceremony to express his feelings of a Spring Wind blowing through life. We hope you find a similar inspiration and renewal flowing through this collection of twentieth century Japanese art.