JAPANESE ART

I decided to create a book on Japanese Art, I thought the works of artists such as Hiroshige paved the way for a lot of artists, such as Van Gogh, they are also the true pioneers of print-making design. It is an art I greatly admire, and believed it would coincide well with a book layout/double page spread. For this brief I find I will not be writing as much in relation to previous design boards, as there is far less content on my design decisions to describe. I follow the Gestalt psycology to design meaning “shape, form” but I find it difficult to under-go all his principles due to some eliminating certain aspects of my own personal creative process. I understand that this brief is the perfect opportunity to utilise the grid method however, I still find it difficult to use. I have not even started yet but understand before I under-go my design boards that I will lack justification for my design process, as I base much of my work and proceed with what feels right to me at the time. I do not like planning my work, I try not to, I prefer to be a bit more spontaneous, I feel it boosts my creativity. I focus on covering the bare basic in my planning process. For my GCSE final piece, I went into the exam with the subject criteria of what I wanted to create, and went from there. This is my learning process, I have still attempted to step out of my comfort zone by following the design principles, but vary loosely in some aspects.

The study of Japanese art has frequently been complicated by the definitions and expectations established in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The occasion of dramatically increased interaction with other cultures seemed to require a convenient summary of Japanese aesthetic principles, and Japanese art historians and archaeologists began to construct methodologies to assess a body of material ranging from Neolithic pottery to wood-block prints. The aesthetic preference for refinement, for images subtly with a metaphoric meaning reference and an opaque view on emotioon.

Another characteristic of Japanese art is an understanding of the natural world as a source of spiritual insight and a mirror of human emotion. An religion that long preceded Buddhism perceived that a spiritual realm was manifest in nature, I believe this a natural aesthetic, along with flourishing wood-block prints will aid the fluidity of my book.