Japan

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Japan's Jōmon potters pressed cord into clay and made flame-rimmed vessels millennia ago. Buddhism arrived in the 6th century, bringing temple sculpture on a grand scale at Nara, and the Heian court produced illustrated scrolls of The Tale of Genji in the 12th century. Zen monks such as Sesshū painted landscapes in ink.

Decorative boldness is another strand. Tawaraya Sōtatsu painted the Wind God and Thunder God screens on gold leaf in the 17th century, founding what became the Rinpa style. Woodblock prints of the Edo period reached full colour with Suzuki Harunobu in the 1760s, and Katsushika Hokusai's Under the Wave off Kanagawa (about 1831) later inspired European artists. After 1945, the Gutai group staged action-based work, while Yayoi Kusama and Yoko Ono made their names in New York. Takashi Murakami's Superflat art, Isamu Noguchi's paper lamps and Kazuyo Sejima's architecture show the range of recent decades.