Noguchi profiles Japanese artists from Koyetsu and Utamaro to the madcap Kyosai and the Turner-loving Hara, arguing that kokoromochi, the spirit behind the brush, matters more than technique. He mixes anecdotes, tea-room visits and comparisons with Whistler and Western painters.
Books mentioned in The Spirit of Japanese Art (3)
Paintings and Studies by Kyosai Kawanabe by Josiah Conder: “…many an admirer of his, like Josiah Conder in Paintings and Studies by Kyosai Kawanabe, a sumptuous book on the artist containing the representative work of his last eight years, sees only the serious side of his work.”
Kyōsai Gadan by Kawanabe Kyosai: “I find in Kyosai Gwaden, an illustrated autobiography here and there humorously exaggerated but none the less sincere, from which all the writers on Kyosai, Professor Conder included, draw the materials of his life;”
A Japanese Artist in London by Yoshio Markino: “In England, many readers of Mr. Markino’s book, A Japanese Artist in London, will remember Hara’s name, as it is frequently repeated in the book;”