Japanese Bamboo Baskets

Book excerpt: Japanese Bamboo Baskets: Masterworks of Form and Texture surveys nineteenth- and twentieth-century baskets of Japan, their place in history, and the elevation of bamboo craft work to an art form. It features more than 250 illustrations of selections from the largest known collection of Japanese flower baskets. This is the first book in English to examine bamboo baskets as modern sculptural masterpieces as well as chronicle the development of Japanese flower-arranging baskets from utilitarian containers through their subsequent transformation into art. At the heart of this volume are dramatic portraits of works in the Cotsen Collection. Full-page and double-page illustrations abound. Large-scale details and second views evoke the forms, textures and three-dimensionality Of the baskets, revealing their monumentality and the architecture of their construction. The baskets illustrated were selected primarily for their visual qualities, and are organized by region. They rage from 1890s examples by the first basket maker who signed his work to 1990s creations by leading bamboo crafts artists. Pieces by all those who have been made Living National Treasures are included. This book is filled with new information and superlative works of art. It will be treasured by anyone who has known the joy of holding a rough-woven basket or admired the delicate tracery of bamboo strips in a contemporary work of bamboo art.