Arts of Japan: Creativity and Innovation

Despite a deep respect for tradition, Japanese artists also process and restructure ideas and technologies from abroad to develop entirely new styles and techniques. Certain themes crop up repeatedly, such as a heightened attention to nature and the seasons; humor and satire; and a fascination with the mysterious and strange (ghosts, demons, tricksters). This presentation will tease out some of these creative and innovative moments in the history of Japanese art and provide participants with suggestions for how to experience Japan’s artistic creativity and innovations while living in or visiting Japan.

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This event is a part of YCAPS' "Getting to Know Japan Series".

Speaker:

Brenda G. Jordan is a Japanese art historian specializing in Tokugawa-period paintings and woodblock prints. She received her PhD from the University of Kansas and was a Monbushō scholar at the University of Tokyo. She joined the Asian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh in 2001 and, from 2008 to 2025, she was the Director of the University of Pittsburgh’s coordinating site for the National Consortium for Teaching About Asia (NCTA). Her publications include The Arts of Japan: Creativity and Innovation (Association for Asian Studies, Key Issues in Asian Studies, 2026), Copying the Master and Stealing His Secrets: Talent and Training in Japanese Painting (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2003) and “Potentially Disruptive: Censorship and the Painter Kawanabe Kyōsai” in Hiroshi Nara, ed., Inexorable Modernity: Japan’s Grappling with Modernity in the Arts (Lexington, 2007).

Format: This event will be recorded and published in our web archive. Questions are encouraged during the live event.

Registration: Required Link

Moderators: Amani Kidd and Jeffery Mazziotta

Webinar Cost: Free of charge