Dr. Rosina Buckland has already penned several books on Japanese art history . . . While juggling her current role as curator of the British Museum’s Japanese collections, she has written another, this time examining art made during the Meiji era . . . Buckland’s study looks at how these turbulent changes, along with the adoption of Western cultural ideas, shaped Japanese painting, calligraphy, sculpture, printing, textiles, metalwork and lacquerware. She refutes any idea of artistic decline, or that foreign influence diluted the 'authenticity' of Japanese art, instead highlighting how local practices innovated by incorporating new ideas from overseas.
