Japanese History of Flowers, Birds, Wind and Moon

The Japanese aesthetics behind Dazai Osamu, Kawabata Yasunari, Koreeda Hirokazu, and Shinkai Makoto! 9 natural landscapes to trace the romantic origins of Japanese culture!

★The winner of the 14th Japan Popular Literature Research Award, highly praised by Japanese philosophy critic and founder of “Umehara Japanese Studies” Takeshi Umehara.

★Select nine types of representative natural scenery to understand all Japanese aesthetics from the source and pursue the sense of seasons that busy urbanites are gradually losing.

★From the Jomon period BC to the present day, covering literature, painting, music, folklore, architecture and daily life, observing Japanese life in the subtle details.

Without talking about natural scenery, there is no Japanese aesthetics!

Since ancient times, Japan has built its history and nurtured its culture with its unique natural environment. Japan’s literature, art, architecture, religion, folklore and daily life all contain core connotations represented by natural scenery. In this book, the well-known Japanese scholar Takahashi Chikenpo uses microscopic images such as trees, flowers and birds, singing insects, wind and rain as entry points to talk about culture, folklore and history. In the dragonflies loved by Emperor Jimmu, the wind in Sugawara Michizane’s waka, and the myths related to clouds in the Kojiki, we can get a glimpse of Japan’s traditional customs, and we can also slow down and capture the information of the four seasons in the busy modern life, and pursue the beauty of natural scenery that is gradually being forgotten.

Takahashi Chikenpa, a Japanese writer, literary critic, and executive director of the Japan Literary Association, was born in Tokyo in January 1943. He graduated from the Department of Japanese Literature at Rikkyo University in Japan. He was the editor-in-chief of the “History Reader” magazine and has written many books, including “Edo Traveler”, “Famous Mountain History of Japan”, “Famous Mountain Cultural History”, “Famous Mountain Folk Customs History”, “Edo Food Color: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter”. In 2001, Takahashi Chikenpa won the 14th Japan Popular Literature Research Award for “Flowers, Birds, Wind and Moon History of Japan”.