Old Taoist
Rooting around in a Kyoto antique shop, Stephen Addiss came across a fine example of literati painting by a hand he didn't recognize. Little did he know then that he had discovered an artist he now calls the last of Japan's great literati, Fukuda Kodojin. Kodojin, who styled himself "Old Taoist," should  have gone the way of other effete scholars with Japan's radical 19th-century  modernization. Instead he wandered in the boundless realms of the three  treasures--painting, poetry, and calligraphy--until his death in 1944. Addiss  discovered the genuine article, a scholar of cultured sensibility who had  mastered the ancient Chinese arts and expressed them with a style all his own.  Addiss introduces us to that style through dozens of examples of Kodojin's  painting and calligraphy, and over 250 poems. To translate the Chinese poetry,  he recruited Jonathan Chaves, who shows the scholar's work to be elegant and  wistful, echoing themes of Confucianism and Taoism. Kodojin's work transports us  back to a time when art was a way of communicating among friends and not  cheapened by exchanges of money.Old Taoistreminds us that even in a  modern world, the pursuit of beauty and genuineness are not only possible but  necessary.--Brian Bruya--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.