England Before The Norman Conquest Considered With Especial Reference To Its Literary Character Book

The Ideals of the East was one of the first books to give Western readers an Eastern perspective on Asian aesthetic ideals and it was perhaps Okakura’s intention to correct the conclusions of foreign scholars with a limited cultural understanding of Asia by writing it.

It makes for a very fascinating read, not only for its general view of Japanese and Asian art in a historical context, but also because of the unique perspective Okakura offers of Asian views before the 20th century political winds and wars would remold them, before Japan, China and Korea were separated by the golf of communism and the atrocities of World War II. It felt a bit like watching a tragedy when you are aware something terrible will happen but the hopeful character onstage is blissfully ignorant.

Okakura is inevitably defensive at times and strives to elevate Japanese art and equal it or set it above the rest of Asia and Europe in particular. In his view, the culmination of Chinese and Indian spiritual and moral ideals are only fully realized in Japan and Europe, in particular the Greek civilization, must be denied all influence in the Asian sphere. Given the time the book was written in, it is understandable why he would feel obliged to idealize Japanese art. Given the onslaught of Western ideas and manners, he must have felt the need to act as protector and worshipper of that which he believed made his country’s culture unique.

Despite a massive influx of Western ideas, Japan’s culture still maintains its individuality today, bending even modernity to its own whims. And while it no longer rises quite to his lofty standards, I suppose that Okakura would have at least been glad of that.