Monday, 9 January 2012

Patterns...Japanese

-Japan’s ornamental tradition is famous for its subdued and highly stylised motifs.

-Many of these take their inspiration from the natural world, the visual language of Japanese design covering animals, with typical favourites such as the crane and the carp, as well as an enormous variety of flowers and foliage. Others are based on geometry. 

-Painting is the preferred artistic expression in Japan, practiced by amateurs and professionals alike. Until modern times, the Japanese wrote with a brush rather than a pen, and their familiarity with brush techniques has made them particularly sensitive to the values and aesthetics of painting. With the rise of popular culture in the Edo period, a style of woodblock prints called ukiyo-e became a major art form and its techniques were fine tuned to produce colorful prints of everything from daily news to schoolbooks.
-The patterns often look at the seasons and the nature found in the seasons.
- Color woodblocks are used in Japamese design and were sometimes selected for their more prominent grain patterns. Printers would use these decorative patterns in large monochrome color areas or in gradated skies and water. 

-Occasionally the patterns closely resembled natural phenomena like radiant heat, rippling water, or refracted light in the sky. At other times, the patterns were simply used to achieve an interesting graphic effect.

 
http://www.pepinpress.com/catalogue/view/56

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