In this book accompanying the exhibition Masters of Bamboo: Japanese Baskets and Sculpture from the Cotsen Collection, exhibition curator Melissa Rinne, in consultation with bamboo specialist Koichiro Okada, provides an overview of this intriguing art form. She also traces the network of master-disciple influences that constitute the major lineages-or lines of artistic transmission-in bamboo art, from nineteenth-century artists through those active today. These lineages have never before been described in a systematic way, and they provide a means of comprehending Japanese bamboo work from a global perspective.