When I was in Europe in 1956, representing the Japanese Government in the discussions that took
place on the problem of holding an Exhibition of Japanese Art in the West, I was asked to write a book
on Japanese art, in which its main historical developments and their special characteristics would be
systematically elucidated with ample illustration. I welcomed the idea because of all the great regional arts
of the world, the true aspects of Japanese art are surprisingly little known in the West.

Before 1868 Japanese contacts with the West had been slight. Moreover, since the sixteenth century,
when the ships of the West penetrated the Eastern seas, the military government of Hideyoshi and, later,
the Tokugawa Shogunate Government adopted a strong isolation-policy, which forbade the entry of
nearly all foreigners for almost three hundred years. When at last the Tokugawa rule collapsed, and the
New Japan was born in 1868, Japan was eager to have communication with the West and to absorb its
science and its industrial techniques. Foreigners were welcomed and tourists began to visit the country.
Slowly Japanese art became known in Europe and America, in the beginning through Ukiyō-e colour-
prints, which had a seminal effect on the Impressionist movement.

But when Japanese art-objects began to be exported abroad, the conservative elements in Japan issued
the 'Law of National Treasures', which prevented nearly all important works of art from leaving the
country. This was in a way a good thing, because Japanese art is preserved almost intact in its place of
origin, a situation which does not occur in any other civilization. At the same time, however, Japanese
art, being kept so completely within its geographical frontiers, where public museums are few and the
finest pieces preserved in private collections, which are not always easily accessible, especially for foreign
visitors, inevitably suffered in the appreciation of the West. Except for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,
and the Freer Gallery, Washington, whose Japanese collections had been mostly formed before the 'Law
of National Treasures' was rigidly enforced, there are to be found only very few examples of Japanese
art in European and American museums which can be considered as really first-class. After visiting
nearly all the Japanese collections abroad I have come to the conclusion that, as Japanese art is so
inadequately represented in other countries, it is natural that the real merit of Japanese art is neither
recognized nor understood.

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