The language of Japanese art, in design

Posted Thu, 10/09/2008 - 10:15am by Matt Itelson

"The Influence of Japanese Art on Design," a book by Art faculty member Hannah Sigur, was published recently.

During the Gilded Age, the U.S. was swept by a mania for all things Japanese. It spread from coast to coast, enticed everyone from robber barons to street vendors with its allure, and touched every aspect of life from patent medicines to wallpaper. Americans of the time found in Japanese art every design language: modernism or tradition, abstraction or realism, technical virtuosity or unfettered naturalism, craft or art, romance or functionalism. Sigur's book, published by Gibbs Smith, compares juxtapositions of American glass, silver and metal arts, ceramics, textiles, furniture, jewelry, advertising and packaging with a spectrum of Japanese material ranging from expensive one-of-a-kind art crafts to mass-produced ephemera.