Birds, Beasts, Blossoms, and Bugs by Harold P. Stern - 1976: The Nature of Japan

Beautiful bright red linen cloth hardcover cover boards have a silver emblem on the front board and silver text on the spine. Decorative, unclipped, wrapped edge, glossy dustjacket is in near perfect condition, as it has added thickness where it is folded over at both the top and bottom. There is no edgewear to the spine, boards or corners, which remain sharp. The binding is straight and tight, hinges are firmly attached with no cracking to the beautiful decorative end pagers. Text block is firm with all pages firmly attached. The interior pages are clean with no tears, no chips, or previous owner marks. Harold P. Stern was a world-renowned expert in the field of Japanese art and has selected the works to be included in this beautiful book "Birds, Beasts, Blossoms, and Bugs – The Nature of Japan". It covers the Heian and Kamakura, Muromachi and Momoyama, and Edo and Modern Periods of Japanese art. With text on the major periods of Japanese art and commentaries on the 177 illustrations, 86 plates in full color and including a chronological chart of the time span of 800 years, this is a book that can be appreciated by the scholar or the novice in this rich area of art. Published in 1976 by Harry N. Abrams it is based on the exhibition organized by Dr. Stern for the UCLA Art Council. Dr. Harold P. Stern (1922 - 1977) was an American art historian and curator specializing in Asian art. He worked at Freer Gallery of Art of the Smithsonian Institution starting in 1950 and served as its director from 1971 to 1977. Stern came to the Gallery as a graduate student from the University of Michigan in 1949. Stern coined the term "Manyo'an" meaning a myriad of autumn leaves