He examines the artistic life of three great Japanese cities shaped the country's attitudes to past and present, east and west, and helped forge the very idea of Japan itself.
Beginning
in Kyoto, the country's capital for almost a thousand years, James
reveals how the flowering of classical culture produced many great
treasures of Japanese art, including The Tale of Genji, considered to be
the first novel ever written. In the city of Edo, where Tokyo now
stands, a very different art form emerged, in the wood block prints of
artists such as Hokusai and Hiroshige. James meets the artisans still
creating these prints today, and discovers original works by a great
master, Utamaro, who documented the so-called 'floating world' - the
pleasure district of Edo.
In
contemporary Tokyo, James discovers the darker side of Japan's
urbanisation, through the photographs of street photographer Daido
Moriyama, and meets one of the founders of the world-famous Studio
Ghibli, Isao Takahata, whose haunting anime film Grave of the Fireflies
helped establish anime as a powerful and serious art form.
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