Select Annotated Bibliography of Okakura Kakuzō

Scholarship in English

1. Monographs and Book Chapters

Benfey, Christopher E. G. "The Boston Tea Party (Kakuzō Okakura and Isabella Gardner)." In The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan, 75-108. New York: Random House, 2003.

Examines the relationship between Okakura and Gardner in the context of American cultural history.

Bharucha, Rustom. Another Asia: Rabindranath Tagore and Okakura Tenshin. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Traces political dimensions of cross-cultural and inter-Asian affinities between Tagore and Okakura through theories of post-colonialism and globalization.

Cohen, Warren I. East Asian Art and American Culture : A Study in International Relations. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992.

Survey account of Japanese and Chinese art collections in American institutions and the historical circumstances and prominent figures that were involved in their making. Examines a range of collections and figures such as the beginnings of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Okakura's involvement.

Guha-Thakurta, Tapati. "Orientalism and the New Claims for Indian Art: The Ideas of Havell, Coomaraswamy, Okakura and Nivedita." In The Making of a New 'Indian' Art : Artists, Aesthetics, and Nationalism in Bengal, c1850-1920, 146-84. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Through these four influential figures, examines the shift in both national and international aesthetic values and the reception of Indian art during the colonial and nationalist periods in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Horioka Yasuko. The Life of Kakuzō, Author of The Book of Tea. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1963.

Through primary materials largely gathered in the U.S., provides a biographical account of Okakura by focusing on his activities in Boston. Horioka has also written monographs on Okakura in Japanese. This still remains the only book-length biography on Okakura in English.

Kowshik, Dinkar. Okakura: The Rising Sun of Japanese Renaissance. New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1988.

Through Okakura's correspondences and involvement with influential thinkers in India such as Sister Nivedita (born Elisabeth Margaret Noble) and the Tagores, Kowshik presents Okakura as a heroic visionary who presented the true value and identity of his native heritage to the Western world.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "1900—Okakura Kakuzō and Edward J. Holmes—Department of Chinese and Japanese Art Established." In A History of the Asiatic Department: A Series of Illustrated Lectures Given in 1957 by Kōjirō Tomita (1890-1976), 45-59. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1990.

In these published lectures, the longtime curator of Asian art, Kōjirō Tomita discusses the history of Asian art at the museum including the time when he worked under Okakura.

Nute, Kevin. "Okakura and the Social and Aesthetic Ideals of the East." In Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan : The Role of Traditional Japanese Art and Architecture in the Work of Frank Lloyd Wright, 121-42. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993.

Articulates the influence of Japanese aesthetic ideals on Wright and the philosophical link to Okakura's aesthetics in The Ideals of the East and the Japanese tea ceremony.

Weston, Victoria. Japanese Painting and National Identity: Okakura Tenshin and His Circle. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2004.

Outlines in a chronological order the strategic attempts by Okakura and his peers to promote Nihonga (Japanese-style painting) as an expression of national identity in the modern era and contextualizes its creation and reception within the broader artistic circles of Japan.

2. Anthologies and Chapters in Edited Volumes

Clark, John. "Okakura Tenshin and Aesthetic Nationalism." In Since Meiji: Perspectives on the Japanese Visual Arts, 1868-2000, 212-56. Ed. J. Thomas Rimer. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2012.

Through excerpts from Okakura's writings, attempts to contextualize his nationalist ideology into an analytical framework to further understand his curatorial and artistic activities within the broader political and economic system of colonialism.

Inaga Shigemi. "Okakura Kakuzō's Nostalgic Journey to India and the Invention of 'Asia.'" In Nostalgic Journeys—Literary Pilgrimages Between Japan and the West, 119-32. Ed. Susan Fisher. CJR Japan Research Series. Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 2001).

Through close reading of biographical detail...