The music of color / Shimura Fukumi ; photography by Inoue Takao ; translated by Matt Treyvaud.

'Originally published in the Japanese language under the title of Iro wo kanaderu on December 3, 1998 by Chikumashobo Ltd.'--Title page verso.

Translated from the Japanese.

The lives of plants -- Receiving color -- The scent of sakura -- Dew from the trunk -- The timbres of the wild -- The Kariyasu of Mount Ibuki -- Gardenia yellow -- The life of indigo -- The color green -- On looms -- Melodies of color -- Mother-of-pearl -- Silkworms from Heaven -- Raw silk -- The beauty of plain cloth -- On mordants -- Journey of light -- A gray world -- Gleanings from the sample box -- Last snows in Kohoku --'Signpost' (Michishirube) -- Snow, Deep North, colors of the requiem -- The sakura of Fujiwara -- Un, Kon, Don : luck, grit, and simplicity -- Tsumugi and Kasuri -- Forty-eight browns and a hundred grays -- Ungen-bokashi -- Murasaki Shikibu and the color purple -- The colors of Gion -- Three-span aprons -- Kimono and obi -- The art of accessorizing -- The future of the kimono -- Half a life in sappanwood red -- Afterword: The work does the work -- In sympathy with nature / Inoue Takao.

'A startlingly original creator in the medium of textiles, Living National Treasure Shimura Fukumi is also well known in Japan for her essays on color, nature, and the work of weaving and dyeing.'The Music of Color' collects some of Shimura's most insightful writing together with Takao Inoue's stunning photographs of her art and the natural world that inspires it. From winter snows to spring blossoms, from the foothills of Japan's Southern Alps to the back streets of Gion, Kyoto, Shimura initiates the reader into areas of Japanese culture where the boundary between craft and art is blurred. Her insight into the sources and use of natural color, along with her decades of experience in the world of Japanese textiles, from silkworm and loom to finished kimono, are both on full display in this rich collection. Travels from Basho's Deep North to the western island of Kyushu are recorded, as are valuable accounts of Shimura's encounters with other figures in Japanese aesthetics such as lacquerware master Kuroda Tatsuaki and poet-critic OÌ{uFAE1} Makoto.' -- From rear cover.