Imitation and Creativity in Japanese Arts: From Kishida Ryusei to Miyazaki Hayao

The idea that Japanese art is produced through rote copy and imitation is an eighteenth-century colonial construction, with roots in Romantic ideals of originality. Offering a much-needed corrective to this critique, Michael Lucken demonstrates the distinct character of Japanese mimesis and its dynamic impact on global culture, showing through several twentieth-century masterpieces the generative and regenerative power of Japanese creativity.

The idea that Japanese art is produced through rote copy and imitation is an eighteenth-century colonial construction, with roots in Romantic ideals of originality. Michael Lucken demonstrates the distinct character of Japanese mimesis and its dynamic impact on global culture through several twentieth-century masterpieces.