Edo Avant Garde

The Guardians of Edo Avant-Garde reveals the pivotal role Japanese artists of the Edo era (1603 – 1868) played in setting the stage for the “modern art” movement in the West. During the Edo era, while a pacified Japan isolated itself from the world, audacious Japanese artists innovated stylization, abstraction, minimalism, surrealism, geometric composition and the illusion of 3-D.

  • How to Look at Japanese Art by Stephen Addis

  • In Praise of Shadows by Tanizaki Junichiro

  • Designing Nature by John T. Carpenter (Met Museum exhibit catalogue)

  • Storytelling in Japanese Art by Masako Watanabe (Met Museum exhibit catalogue)

  • Colorful Realm by Yukio Lippit (National Gallery of Art exhibit catalogue)

  • The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman

  • Bird Sense: What It's Like to Be a Bird by Tim Birkhead

  • The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate by Peter Wohlleben

  • The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature by J. Drew Lanham

  • Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans De Waal

  • Just Enough: Lessons in Living Green from Traditional Japan by Azby Brown

  • Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane

  • Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape by Debra Gwartney, Barry Lopez

  • The Great Wave: by Christopher Benfey (history of 19th century American collectors)