Sotatsu

Sōtatsu is a beautifully designed volume celebrating the influential early seventeenth-century Japanese painter Tawaraya Sōtatsu. This book, the first Western survey of this important artist, accompanies the Smithsonian's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery exhibition of the same name.

Tawaraya Sōtatsu was a commoner who introduced traditional Japanese themes and subjects, formerly the sole purview of the aristocracy, to broader audiences. He painted these nationalistic images using a bold, expressive...