ART DAR

Japanese art includes a wide range of styles and means of expression, including ceramics, sculpture, painting and calligraphy on silk and paper, the ukiyo-e woodblock prints, origami and, more recently, manga along with a myriad of other types of artwork. It has a long history, the first examples of complex art being produced in the centuries VII and VIII in connection with Buddhism.

Painting, practiced by amateur and professional, is the preferred artistic expression in Japan. Even today, as in ancient times, the Japanese wrote with a brush rather than a pen, and their familiarity with the use of the brush techniques has made them particularly sensitive to the aesthetic values of painting.

With the rise of popular culture in the Edo period, the style of ukiyo-e woodblock prints became an important art form and its techniques were refined to produce colorful prints of practically every topic, from daily news to the issues of school books.

The use of sculpture in Japan has almost always been the prerogative of religion and its use has waned along with the diminishing importance of traditional Buddhism.

Ceramics, among the best in the world, represent the first known artifacts of Japanese culture. In architecture, the Japanese have always expressed clearly their ancestral preference for natural materials and for the harmonic interaction between the interior and exterior space.