Unexpected Smiles: Seven Types of Humor in Japanese Paintings

By Stephen Addiss

Featuring forty-eight paintings on hanging scrolls, the works in this book illustrate how humor developed in Japan from the 1700s to the early 1900s. The seven categories of humor are: parody, satire, personification, word-play, fantasy, exaggeration, and playfulness. The paintings have been chosen from private and public collections in the United States. Some of the artists included are famous, such as Sȏtatsu, Hakuin, Shȏhaku, Jakuchȏ, Rengetsu, Nantenbȏ, and Kodȏjin, while others are little-known. Together they display a great variety of styles and subjects with the single common point of humor.

Softcover, 99 pages

Published 2018 by University of Richmond Press Richmond VA