アート・ドキュメンテーションの展開とその文献紹介

1990年代に入って

抄録

This eassay cites the notable events in the development of art documentation and art libraries in Japna since 1990, and some important articles in this field. Some important reference materials in art history, mainly old art magazines dating from the Meiji period up to the prewar Showa years (until 1945), have been made available in rapidly increasing varieties in microfilms and other media in the past few years. This is the result of the increase in demand for these materials from art libraries, and indicates that the art libraries are growing steadily. With more materials and information in art available in this way, the need for bibliographies and indexes, has become urgent. Japanese exhibition catalogues have grown rapidly both in their quality and in the number of titles published, but many problems have arisen concerning their distribution and collection, the task of making indexes of the works included and how to make them available at art libraries. Some of the problems involve the issue of copyright, and are particular to Japan with its copyright legislation that differs in many ways from those of the Western countries. Computers started to be introduced into art study in the mid-eighties, and recently pictorial data in addition to text data have started to be accumulated and processed, making various new uses of data possible. Though art documentation has but a short history here in Japan, many people in the related areas, such as archivists and the visual and audio staff members at libraries, have joined in the efforts. Its task for the coming years is to make the definition of the interdisciplinary phrase "art documentation" and its activities better known in Japan.