Commercial art came to the fore in Japan during the period between the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and the onset of full-scale war in China in 1937, when many forms of culture were being popularized and commodified. The importation of new technologies from Europe and America beginning in the late nineteenth century brought a momentous change in the relationship between culture and industry in Japan. Innovations such as the rotary printing press, electrical telegraphy, wireless telegraphy (radio), photography, movies, recording technology, and railroads enabled the production of a cheap and easily reproducible culture that could be efficiently disseminated throughout the nation. This introductory chapter lays the groundwork for understanding the birth of commercial art and professional design in Japan.
Sources
Too numerous to include here, articles from daily, weekly, and monthly periodicals and newspapers have not been listed in the bibliography but are indicated in the endnotes of each chapter.
Aidea (Idea)
Affiches (Posters)
Art and Industry
Asahi gurafu (Asahi Graph)
Cheinstoa kenkyū (Chainstore Research)
Commerce Japan
Commercial Art
Desegno
Far Eastern Review
Front
Gebrauchsgraphik (Commercial graphics)
Graphis
Gurafikku dezain (Graphic Design)
Hanbai undo (Sales Movement)
Japan Times and Mail
Kaō buretin (Kao Bulletin)
Kenchiku shinchō (New architecture)
Kōga
Kōgei jidai (Industrial Art News)
Kōkoku bijutsu (Japan Advertising Art)
Kōkokukai (Advertising World)
Kōkū asahi (Aviation Asahi)
Kokusai kenchiku (International architecture)
Life
Matsuda shinpō (Mazda News)
Matsushita Denki geppō (Matsushita Electric Monthly)
Mavo
Mitsukoshi (Mitsukoshi taimusu) (Mitsukoshi Times)
Mizue (Watercolor painting)
Modern Publicity
Morinaga berutorain (Morinaga Beltline)
Nagaseman (Nagase man)
New York Times
Nippon
Offset- Buch- und Werbekunst (Offset, book, and advertising)
Ōsaka asahi shinbun
Ōsaka mainichi shinbun
Sandē mainichi (Sunday Mainichi)
Shiseidō cheinstoa (Shiseido Chainstore)
Shiseido cheinstoa alma mater (Shiseido Chainstore Alma Mater)
Shiseido geppō (Shiseido Monthly)
Shiseido gurafu (Shiseido Graph)
Suītorando (Sweetland)
Tōkyō asahi shinbun
Tsūrisuto (Tourist)
Travel in Japan
Umi to sora (Sea and Sky)
Yomiuri shinbun