CHINESE AND JAPANESE CRAFTS And Their Cultural Backgrounds

by Jeremy Comins ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 24, 1978

Like Comins' other books on simulating the arts of different cultures (South American, Eskimo), this includes directions for a number of easily made items which bear little relationship to the original that inspire them or to any particular culture. Thus we see cardboard masks that could be anyone's, stenciled T-shirts (hardly an Oriental art form), a festival dragon of corrugated cardboard, to be held up with sticks by paraders, that is recognizably Chinese but a poor imitation of the one photographed on Mott Street, and, similarly, a balsa wood ""happy man"" that's a far cry from the traditional carved ivory netsuke which is also shown here in photos. By the last chapter, when Comins describes Chinese rug designs made with 30 to 100 hand knots per inch, then follows with instructions for a latchet-hooked pillow, you'll almost be ready for a bleach-bottle Ming vase.

Pub Date: May 24, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1978

Categories: NONFICTION