THE JAPANESE INFLUENCE IN AMERICA is the first major book to explore the historic background and define the impact of Japanese ideas, aesthetic ideals, and art forms upon the United States. Contrary to the prevalent notion that the current vogue for things Japanese is a relatively recent development, Clay Lancaster demonstrates conclusively, and with copious pictorial evidence, that Japan has played an important part in American cultural life for the greater part of a century. Furthermore the influence of Japan has been both deep and broad, extending over a cultural area that includes gardening, interior decoration, fine arts, applied arts, print making, literature, and, most important of all, architecture.
The introductory chapters of this volume examine early Japanese contacts with the foreign world, the influence of the Far East upon European from the thirteenth through the nineteenth century, and the beginnings of American relations with Japan. Then, following a chapter concerning the Japanese imprint upon the Europe of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—where one encounters the American Whistler the author begins a detailed account of Japan’s influence in America.
