Page 44 - BSAM 2017 Q1

Book Review
JAPANESE SCROLLS:
42 | BCI | January/February/March 2017
THEIR HISTORY, ART & CRAFT By William de Lange with Teruo Takayanagi. 2016. Floating Worlds Editions, Inc. Warren, Connecticut.
247 pages.
ISBN: 978-1-891640-88-9. $60.
By Thomas S Elias, USA
Photos courtesy William de Lange
It is ironic that virtually everyone involved in the art of bonsai and stone appreciation is familiar with Japanese scrolls; however, most practitioners know little about them or their larger role in Japanese culture. This superficial knowledge is due, in large part, to the lack of quality scholarly works available in the English language. The
deficiency is about to disappear now that we have William de Lange’s newly published volume on Japanese scrolls. This carefully researched book written by a true scholar of Japanese culture is excellent and should be in the library of every student of Japanese arts and crafts.
The author, William de Lange, has devoted his adult life to the study of Japanese life and culture. He studied English in his native country of Holland before going to Japan as a teenager. During these years in Japan, de Lange learned the art of scroll making and wrote articles for the Japan Times Weekly to support himself. He returned to Holland to pursue a degree in Japanese studies at the prestigious Leiden University. De Lange returned to Japan in 1993 with a scholarship from the Japanese Ministry of Education and spent almost seven years studying the art of Japanese fencing and the lives of the samurai class. He also spent six months with master scroll maker Teruo Takayanagi in Mobara in Chiba prefecture. In preparing this book, de Lange sought to first fill the void of information in English on Japanese scrolls and, secondly, to pay tribute to Takayanagi, who received wide recognition in Japan for his artistry. He was a second generation artisan of Japanese scrolls.
is book is divided into three main sections—history, art, and cra — with a series of essays in each of the sections. e author used Japanese language references as his primary sources of information, complimented by several important English sources. e bulk of the information included in the nal section on the cra of scrolls, came from de Lange’s personal observations and documentation of the processes used by Takayanagi as he cra ed several ne scrolls. Unfortunately, Takayanagi died before the book was published. His skills in selecting the appropriate materials for a scroll are meticulously documented in this book, truly a ne tribute to a tradi- tional art form that is being threatened by mass production techniques.
e opening section on the history of scrolls is replete with important information. Scrolls, like so many others cra s, were imported from China prior to the sixth century by monks and o cial embassies. By the Mu- romachi (1392-1573 CE) and Momoyama (1573-1615) periods, hanging scrolls were becoming accepted and more commonplace. De Lange makes a strong case for new cultural in uences that a ected the acceptance of hanging scrolls. ey were the style of architecture and the tradition of drinking tea, both imported to Japan from China primarily by Buddhist
Tribute to a Traditional Japanese Art Form