role, most assiduously pressed after Okakura's death by his followers, is not taken seriously by art scholars today, nor is the idea that oil painting posed any serious "threat" to traditional Japanese painting. Yet Okakura was certainly instrumental in modernizing Japanese aesthetics, having recognized the need to preserve Japan's cultural heritage, and thus was one of the major reformers during Japan's period of modernization beginning with the Meiji Restoration. Outside Japan, Okakura influenced a number of important figures, directly or indirectly, who include Swami Vivekananda, philosopher Martin Heidegger, poet Ezra Pound, and especially poet Rabindranath Tagore and heiress Isabella Stewart Gardner, who were close personal friends of his. He was also one of a trio of Japanese artists who introduced the wash technique to Abanindranath Tagore, the father of modern Indian watercolor. As part of the Izura Institute of Arts & Culture, Ibaraki University manages Rokkakudō, an hexagonal wooden retreat overlooking the sea along the Izura coast in Kitaibaraki, Ibaraki Prefecture, that was designed by Okakura and built in 1905. It is registered as a national monument. Books The Ideals of the East (London: J. Murray, 1903) The Awakening of Japan (New York: Century, 1904) The Book of Tea (New York: Putnam's, 1906) See also Teaism Rokkakudō Tomonubu Imamichi das in-der-Welt-sein Tenshin Memorial Museum of Art, Ibaraki References Additional sources Bharucha, Rustom. Another Asia: Rabindranath Tagore and Okakura Tenshin. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. . "We Must Do a Better Job of Explaining Japan to the World". Asahi Shimbun, August 12, 2005. Benfey, Christopher. The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan. New York: Random House, 2003. . Okakura Kakuzo, The Illustrated Book of Tea. Chiang Mai: Cognoscenti Books. 2012. ASIN: B009033C6M Westin, Victoria. Japanese Painting and National Identity: Okakura Tenshin and His Circle. Center for Japanese Studies University of Michigan (2003). External links "History of Japanese Art" by Okakura Kakuzo (English Translation) Kokka and the Early Neo-Bengal School Masters by Satyasri Ukil An Artist Remembered by Satyasri Ukil Forget Okakura by Niraj Kumar 1863 births 1913 deaths Japanese writers English-language writers from Japan Museum of Fine Arts, Boston People from Yokohama University of Tokyo alumni People of Meiji-period Japan Shinbutsu bunri History of art in Japan Japanese magazine founders