Download or read book Selected Relics of Japanese Art, Vol. 1 (Classic Reprint) written by S. Tajima and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Selected Relics of Japanese Art, Vol. 1 T has not been generally recognized in the West that the famous Buddhist temples of the central provinces of Japan, especially of Kyoto, have been for centuries, and still are the custodians of ancient masterpieces of Oriental art, as important for their respective histories of culture as are the better known aesthetic treasures of European, and especially of Italian cathedrals. Since I first began to listen to these unique voices of the past, it is now fully twenty years; and again and again have I returned to the classic and pine-shaded shrines of Miyako with the same reverence and soul-hunger which Santa Croce, the Frari, and San Francesco of Assisi ever inspire. It is not in the favourite curio-shops of the ports, nor even in the private collections of the nobles, that the full depth of Chinese and Japanese art can be sounded. As in Europe, the devotion that could -rise to supreme beauty was lavished upon holy altar-pieces, the tombs of the saints, and sacred memorial offerings. Here lie embalmed forever the spirits not only of generations of artists, but of extinct schools, and of millenia of national epochs. The world is now to be con gratulated that at last, with the illustrations of the present work, it will possess the materials for this fascinating study that have heretofore been monopolized by a few favoured travellers. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.