Elisa Evett
The Critical Reception of Japanese Art in Late Nineteenth-Century Europe.
Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1982. Studies in the Fine Arts, The Avant-Garde, No. 36.  First edition. 0835713687 xvi/165 pages.
Volume, measuring approximately 6.25" x 9.25", is bound in beige cloth, with stamped black/purple lettering to spine and front cover. Geometric design in purple appears in compartment in lower outside quadrant of front cover. Book shows light shelfwear. Binding is firm. Minute spot appears in margin of pages x-xiii. Pages are otherwise clean and bright.
"Chapter 1 of this study presents a chronological review of the kinds of pictorial art that were available and assesses the state of knowledge about it. Chapter 2 examines the critics' explanations for the peculiarities of Japanese art -- explanations that were based on physiological, psychological, and environmental reasons, and that contributed to the interpretation of Japanese art as the expression of a primitive or childlike mentality. Chapter 3 studies the concerns underlying the critics' remarks on the innately artistic nature of the Japanese people. Chapter 4 investigates the ambivalence in critics' responses to Japanese pictorial conventions. Chapter 5 examines the critics' attitudes about Western receptivity to Japanese influence and uses a comparison of the differences in the responses to Japanese and Chinese art to reinforce the primitivist explanation for Japonism. Finally, an alphabetical  list of the major writers discussed and brief biographical sketches with information pertinent to the topic of this examination make up the Appendix at the end."