Okakura, Kakuzo

Okakura Kakuzo (Okakura Tenshin, 1862 - 1913), was a Japanese intellectual, writer and art collector and a renowned critic of the trend toward westernization. He was born in Yokohama and wrote The Ideals of the East (1903) and The Awakening of Japan (1904) but is best - known for his famous The Book of Tea (1906). He began writing about the Japanese art and culture in collaboration with Ernest Fenollosa and founded the Nihon Bijutsuin. Kakuzo also introduced Asian art to American scholars and died at the age of 51.

An art critic who had great influence upon modern Japanese art. He worked under the pseudonym, Okakura Tenshin. He became the pre-eminent voice in defending Japan’s traditional art forms against modernization and westernization of the early Meiji Restoration.