Essays on the nature, production, and presentation of art, craft, and architecture in Japan, inspired by the author's experiences in Kyoto.

Illusory Dwellings is not a guide concerning what to see in Kyoto, but a philosophical meditation on how to travel and observe in this capital of traditional Japanese art.

Both intimate and scholarly, the book accompanies the reader on visits to famed gardens like Ryoan-ji, investigates the complex symbolism of the tea ceremony and the important role of the tea room, reveals the beauty of Japanese cuisine, and delves into the world of contemporary ceramics. It also provides context for the tensions and harmony between traditional and modern forms of art and craft in Kyoto and throughout Japan, and contrasts these with how they are received at home versus their treatment by Western museums in modernist contexts.

Altogether this is an erudite and provocative analysis of artist and observer, a book to shape the reader's aesthetic worldview and provide numerous occasions for discussion and debate. With over 50 black and white photographs.

About the Author

Allen S. Weiss is the author and editor of over forty books in the fields of performance theory, landscape architecture, gastronomy, sound art, experimental theater, and ceramics. He has written extensively on Japanese culture, including Zen Landscapes: Perspectives on Japanese Gardens and Ceramics (Reaktion Books) and The Grain of the Clay: Reflections on Ceramics and the Art of Collecting (Reaktion Books), as well as Le gout de Kyoto (Mercure de France) and Guide anachronique de Kyoto (Editions Arlea). He has been the recipient of Fulbright, Japan Society, and Etant donne grants, and is Distinguished Teacher in the departments of Performance Studies and Cinema Studies in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

Reviews

"A priceless resource."

-Noah Oskow, Unseen Japan

"Whether used as a beautifully meditative companion to travel or a thoroughly researched introduction to the art of the city, this brief but resonant title will find a ready audience with thoughtful Japanophiles."

-Heather Booth, Booklist

"Believing that a garden or city is a state of mind as much as a physical locale, Weiss offers insights into deciphering the mysteries of the traditional as well as contemporary art forms of 'this ancient and still ebullient cultural capital.'"

-Diane Durston, Curator Emerita, Portland Japanese Garden

"Here is a book that doesn't present itself as a work of literary merit, but cannot fail in being one. Books like this are a supreme rarity."

-Stephen Mansfield, Writers in Kyoto

"Illusory Dwellings is the kind of reflection on the art and aesthetics of Kyoto that manages to stitch together the sentiments and perspectives from a group of people as diverse as philosopher/essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, hermit/poet Kamo no Chomei, author Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, Zen priest Dogen, novelist Jack Kerouac, writer Lafcadio Hearn, and the Greek-Roman philosopher Plutarch. Wide-ranging and informativ

-Marc Peter Keane, Author of Of Arcs and Circles: Insights from Japanese Gardens, Nature, and Art

Reviews of the French edition

"This work, which deals with the place of handicrafts (the importance of potters as artists) in museums, tableware in restaurants, and the symbolism of bells, is an indispensable cultural [handbook] for immersing oneself in all that Kyoto can exude in its beauty and truth. Remarkable!

-Parenthese

"It is only in a next step that a reader, after having fulfilled his tourist duties and visited all the places 'to see,' will deepen his journey and knowledge of Japanese aesthetics through this work, which is full of subtle analyses and information on concepts familiar to Japanologists and more especially to all those who think about the confrontations between the perception of art and beauty, in the West and the East."

-Rene de Ceccatty, in Les Lettres francaises

"Memorable and exalting . . . Allen S. Weiss is at the same time guide and master, like Virgil at the side of Dante during their trip through Hell and Purgatory."

-Lucien d' Azay, in Revue des Deux Mondes

Reviews of other works by Allen S. Weiss

"This is a brilliant, almost hallucinatory, revelation of landscape architecture--its profoundly metaphysical origins, its transfixing history, and its virtually infinitizing future. . . . Weiss has raised our understanding of the garden to an exponentially higher level."

-Professor David B. Allison, State University of New York at Stony Brook, in praise of Unnatural Horizons

"Weiss himself is a genuine aficionado. He writes with knowledge and enthusiasm about many aspects of Japanese aesthetics."

-Crafts magazine, in praise of The Grain of the Clay: Reflections on Ceramics and the Art of Collecting

"The first in-depth Western study that looks at the relationship that exists between gardens and ceramics, suggesting new theories of representation and, above all, presenting ideas that may change the way we view such places."

-The Japan Times, in praise of Zen Landscapes: Perspectives on Japanese Gardens and Ceramics

Book Information
ISBN 9781611720839
Author Allen S. Weiss
Format Paperback
Page Count 184
Imprint Stone Bridge Press
Publisher Stone Bridge Press