Ruskin in Japan 1890-1940: Nature for Art, Art for Life

This book investigates the significance of Victorian thinker John Ruskin’s ideas in modern Japan, and the Japanese creative appropriation of these in their own modern movement of art, crafts and architecture. Rather than focusing on ‘influence’, it examines Japan’s subjective and selective appropriation of foreign ideas and the process of localisation.

This book is published to accompany the international exhibition traveling the Ruskin Gallery in Sheffield (May 3 - June 28, 1997), Koriyama City Museum of Art (July 19 - August 24, 1997) and the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura (August 30 - October 5, 1997).

This is a book/exhibition catalogue consisting of the main text with six chapters together with two short essays contributed by Bury and Kanno. Watanabe wrote chapters 1-3, and Kikuchi wrote chapters 4-6 and Materials on John Ruskin published in Japan. The introduction was co-written by Watnabe and Kikuchi.