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Perhaps best known as the author of ''[[The Ideals of the East]]'' and ''[[The Book of Tea]]'', Okakura was the founder and first director of ''[[Nihon Bijutsuin]]'' (Japan Fine Arts Academy), and the first head of the Oriental art department at the [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]].

Perhaps best known as the author of ''[[The Ideals of the East]]'' and ''[[The Book of Tea]]'', Okakura was the founder and first director of ''[[Nihon Bijutsuin]]'' (Japan Fine Arts Academy), and the first head of the Oriental art department at the [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]].

==Life and career==

==Life and Career==

Kakuzô was the son of Okakura Kan'emon, a wealthy silk merchant from [[Fukui prefecture]]. Educated chiefly in English-language schools in [[Yokohama]], where he was brought up, he would later attend [[Tokyo Imperial University]], where many of his teachers and mentors, [[Ernest Fenollosa]] chief among them, were Westerners. Okakura and Fenollosa would maintain a close relationship for many years. In university, Okakura focused in his studies upon politics, and other subjects which might lead him to a successful career as a government official, in accordance with his father's desires; he pursued studies of art as a hobby, on the side.

Kakuzô was the son of Okakura Kan'emon, a wealthy silk merchant from [[Fukui prefecture]]. Educated chiefly in English-language schools in [[Yokohama]], where he was brought up, he would later attend [[Tokyo Imperial University]], where many of his teachers and mentors, [[Ernest Fenollosa]] chief among them, were Westerners. Okakura and Fenollosa would maintain a close relationship for many years. In university, Okakura focused in his studies upon politics, and other subjects which might lead him to a successful career as a government official, in accordance with his father's desires; he pursued studies of art as a hobby, on the side.

In the last decade of his life, Okakura became a fixture in the art world and upper class circles of Boston society, developing a particularly close relationship with [[Isabella Stewart Gardner]]. While serving as head of the Asiatic Art section at the Museum of Fine Arts, he frequently led [[tea ceremony|tea ceremonies]] at the Gardner house, Fenway Court, and later gave his tea set to Mrs. Gardner as a gift.

In the last decade of his life, Okakura became a fixture in the art world and upper class circles of Boston society, developing a particularly close relationship with [[Isabella Stewart Gardner]]. While serving as head of the Asiatic Art section at the Museum of Fine Arts, he frequently led [[tea ceremony|tea ceremonies]] at the Gardner house, Fenway Court, and later gave his tea set to Mrs. Gardner as a gift.

Though he himself painted a number of compositions, his contributions as an intellectual and art critic were far more significant. He wrote and published a number of very influential books on the essence of Asianness and Japaneseness and on Japanese culture and art, and attended the [[1904]] [[St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition]] (World's Fair), where he gave talks and distributed pamphlets. He was a strong advocate for the idea that only Asians could fully and properly understand and appreciate Asian culture, and believed strongly in an inherent Japanese cultural superiority. At a time when Westerners continued to espouse Orientalist attitudes about Western superiority, seeing the East as primitive and backwards, and when Japan eagerly adopted a myriad of aspects of Western culture, associating it with modernity and their own traditional culture with the primitive and the backwards, Okakura advanced the idea of the East as the home of a more spiritual, culturally superior civilization, the West as representative of modern decadence and materialism. His three most famous books, ''Ideals of the East, The Book of Tea'', and ''[[The Awakening of Japan]]'', were written and published originally in English, for a Western audience.

Though he himself painted a number of compositions, his contributions as an intellectual and art critic were far more significant. He wrote and published a number of very influential books on the essence of Asianness and Japaneseness and on Japanese culture and art, and attended the [[1904]] [[St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition]] (World's Fair), where he gave talks and distributed pamphlets. He was a strong advocate for the idea that only Asians could fully and properly understand and appreciate Asian culture, and believed strongly in an inherent Japanese cultural superiority. At a time when Westerners continued to espouse Orientalist attitudes about Western superiority, seeing the East as primitive and backwards, and when Japan eagerly adopted a myriad of aspects of Western culture, associating it with modernity and their own traditional culture with the primitive and the backwards, Okakura advanced the idea of the East as the home of a more spiritual, culturally superior civilization, the West as representative of modern decadence and materialism. His three most famous books, ''Ideals of the East'', ''The Book of Tea'', and ''[[The Awakening of Japan]]'', were written and published originally in English, for a Western audience.

Through his writings, talks, and other activities, he established a reputation for himself as one of the chief experts on Asian art and culture. Though he is known to have worn Western-style formal suits in Japan, he made a point of always appearing in public in the West in Japanese kimono. Though most Japanese at this time saw Western clothing as elements of a modern society, and kimono as backwards and provincial, in the eyes of Americans, Okakura's kimono lent him a greater air of authenticity. Dressed in kimono, he was seen by Americans as more in touch with his own culture, and someone who could more rightly be seen as an authority on it.

Through his writings, talks, and other activities, he established a reputation for himself as one of the chief experts on Asian art and culture. Though he is known to have worn Western-style formal suits in Japan, he made a point of always appearing in public in the West in Japanese kimono. Though most Japanese at this time saw Western clothing as elements of a modern society, and kimono as backwards and provincial, in the eyes of Americans, Okakura's kimono lent him a greater air of authenticity. Dressed in kimono, he was seen by Americans as more in touch with his own culture, and someone who could more rightly be seen as an authority on it.