As I posted earlier, I have been venturing into Japanese flower arranging.  The pull of the Japanese minimalist aesthetic is very powerful for me, and I was first introduced to it in college when I took a survey course on Japanese art.  I have thought about it a lot, and I decided to write my professor a thank-you note about it – thirty years late.  It took a bit of doing to locate her – her name has changed – and in searching, I came across a talk she gave about this famous print by Hokusai, “The Great Wave.”  [Complete talk  here:  Totebags, Teeshirts, and Tableware: The Domestication of Hokusai's Great Wave.]

In her talk, she addresses issues of the commercialization of art, mass reproduction of images and commoditization for the consumer economy, cultural appropriation of icons, and the history of japonisme in Western art.  The latter has been known for a century among art scholars as an important influence on Art Nouveau, Impressionism, and other trends, but it was brought to the fore in the public mind with one of Thomas Hoving’s first “blockbuster” exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Among the ironies Professor Guth points out is that in Japan in the 1970s, Hokusai, and the Ukiyo-e genre in which he worked, was not exactly a universally lauded high point of Japanese culture.  Indeed, he was considered a practioner of a rather disreputable art form, and not a member of the high-art pantheon, not the least  because he worked in woodblock prints, a medium intended for popular mass consumption.  Ukiyo-e, the floating world, is the culture of the pleasure district, if not the red light district, and one of his more kinky essays in that direction is shown here:

Imagine this on display in a high-profile exhibit of loan works from Japan during its heyday as the International Bogeyman of the American economy!

Guth takes a broad minded view of the inevitable mixing of art and commerce, tracing the ways in which museums aided the transformation of The Great Wave into one of the most recognizable images of Japanese art today.  She dismisses the attitude of one critic whom she quotes early on as saying that museums must hold the line between art and mass-consumption, accepting the situation of today.  After all, anytime you put a person in front of art, you never know what kind of experience they will have.  An opposing view, whether from the right or the left of the political spectrum, decries the degeneration of cultural capital in favor of profit, spectacle, kitsch…etc., sharing a remarkably similar lack of confidence in the power of ordinary people to evolve imaginative responses of their own to art works.

I became aware of the ubiquity (highlighted at this blog) of the Hokusai print myself when I noticed the logo of a clothing line with which my son was obsessed during his skateboarding phase.  I don’t think I have seen another example of the appropriation of the image through such abstraction.

We’ll be back tomorrow to talk about Sunday night’s awesome Mad Men season finale (and hopefully August will be able to join me after he figures out some technical issues), but I can tell you right now that we loved it. It was a lovely episode, a gorgeous play on our expectations as only Mad Men can pull off and an episode in which, as I teased all my west coast friends who wouldn’t see the episode until two hours after me, “everyone gets exactly what they want.”

Thinking about certain elements of the ending got me thinking about this past season of the show in general, and in particular, the season premiere, “Out Of Town,” and the then latest acquisition to Bert Cooper’s eccentric collection of art: Hokusai Katsushika’s (best known for The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, see above) 1820 erotic painting, The Dream Of The Fisherman’s Wife, or also known as Diving Girl With Octopus. See:

Well, actually that came up because I also noticed that the Picasso museum in Barcelona is doing a special exhibition “Secret Images” talking about some of Pablo’s favorite bits of erotic Japanese art. We’ll be back tomorrow, but that’s just something to think about for tonight to hold you over: Mad Men. Erotic Japanese art. Young women committing sex acts with creatures of the deep. And Pablo Picasso, who, of course, was never called an asshole…

Boceto previo. Lápiz y tinta sobre papel.

Pilot sobre papel.

Na iedere storm tonen wij
slakken op de blinde muur
een terugweg naar de tuin,
lijmen naalden aan pijnbomen

hun pitten zouden heilzaam zijn
wij praten tegen stilte, terwijl
in het sombere deel van een klavier
het onweer nog wat laatste tonen kiest.

Wat ben ik dan een baken, lichttoren
voor een hart dat jouw naam blijft
herhalen. Dichterbij seint als jij

denkt hoe ver en dan beseft hoe
lang die vraag al elke zin verloor.
We vonden in elkaar een haven.

Born in 1928 in Manchester, England, Johnson is an English Roman Catholic journalist, historian, speechwriter, and author. He was educated at the Jesuit independent school Stonyhurst College, and at Magdalen College, Oxford. He has more than more than 40 books in print that include:

Heroes(2007)
Creators (2006)
George Washington: The Founding Father (2005)
Intellectuals (2003)
Napoleon (2002)
The Renaissance: A Short History (2002)

I have just re-read Creators in which Johnson examines 17 exemplars of what he characterizes as “creative courage”: Chaucer, Dürer, Shakespeare, Bach, Turner and Hokusai, Austen, Pugin and Viollet-le-Duc, Hugo, Twain, Tiffany, Eliot, Balenciaga and Dior, and in then Picasso and Disney. The range of his interests correctly suggests the scope and depth of his erudition. Here are two brief excerpts:

Creative courage “is of many different kinds. What are we to think of the quiet, withdrawn, silent, uncomplaining courage of Emily Dickinson? She continued to write her poetry, and eventually amassed a significant oeuvre, with little or no encouragement, no guidance, and no public response, for only six short poems were published in her lifetime and these against her will. She worked essentially in isolation and solitude, a brave woman confronting the fears and agonies of creation without (or hindrance either, as perhaps she would have said).” Johnson also briefly discusses Mozart, Dickens, Caravaggio, Beethoven, Marie Cassatt, Toulouse-Lautrec, Robert Louis Stevenson, David Hume, Trollope, V.S. Pritchett, and J.B. Priestly…all of whom encountered and overcame “daunting challenges.”

“The popularity of the creative arts, and the influence they exert, will depend ultimately in their quality and allure, on the delight and excitement they generate, and on demotic choices. Picasso set his faith against nature, and burrowed within himself. Disney worked with nature, stylizing it, anthropomorphizing it, and surrealizing it, but ultimately reinforcing it. That is why his ideas form so many powerful palimpsests in the visual vocabulary of the world in the early twenty-first century, and will continue to shine through, while the ideas of Picasso, powerful thought they were for much of the twentieth century, will gradually fade and seem outmoded, as representational art returns in favor. In the end nature is the strongest force of all.”

I highly recommend Creators as well as Howard Gardner’s Creating Minds in which he examines the lives and achievements of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi.

La vague d’Hokusaï revisitée

huhuhu

Parfois, on finit par oublier que dans l’inconscient collectif, Internet est comparé à un océan, sur lequel nos navigateurs nous permettent de surfer… D’où vient cette métaphore maritime?

Si on se tient aux étymologies du mot :

• La vague est une puissance, une force naturelle puissante et difficilement contrôlable ;
• Le vague est également quelque chose d’un peu peu brouillon, imprécis, indéfinissable, ingérable.

Tout Internet en somme… Une vaste étendue dont les millions de mouvements permanents sont difficiles à mesurer, contrôler, prédire…

Bien avant le World Wild Web, la métaphore de la vague est convoquée pour évoquer un mouvement puissant qui envahirait quelques chose : vague de grippe, vague d’estivants sur la Côte, Nouvelle Vague au cinéma ou en politique…

Les marques ayant un lien avec la mer capitalisent assez naturellement sur l’image de la vague, sans omettre parfois de rendre hommage à une des images de vague les plus célèbres : celle du japonais Hokusaï (cf. image d’introduction). C’est le cas de Quicksilver ou Rip Curl :

On a également vu Nintendo lancer une série limitée de sa console DS :

Et même Levi’s dans les rues au Japon :

Que dire de Google Wave?

Ou encore du récent film allemand La Vague basé sur un roman dans lequel un professeur s’amuse à reproduire auprès de ses élèves les conditions d’ascension d’un régime totalitaire.

On dirait bien malgré les multiples interprétations que la vague peut supporter, elle est fréquemment utilisée pour symboliser le renouveau, l’innovation, la jeunesse…

Mais peu à l’opposé incarner le mal, la crainte, l’incontrôlable. N’importe quelle marque ne peut pas jouer avec la vague, ce symbole est réservé aux entreprises segmentantes qui ne peuvent être aimées de tous.

L’avenir s’annonce plus vague jamais.

SHUNGA WRAPPED by Bob Kessel
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SHUNGA LICKITY SPLIT by Bob Kessel
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SHUNGA YELLOW MAN by Bob Kessel
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Bob Kessel has created a new art series titled, “SHUNGA” based on Japanese woodblock prints. The pictures are available as limited edition original fine art prints, signed and numbered by the artist. Contact Bob Kessel for prices and availability.

Recently there has been many new pictures added to Bob Kessel’s Shunga art series. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the shunga webpage receives 10 times the hits of any other Bob Kessel art series.

SHUNGA EXPLAINED

Shunga are literally “images of spring.” That is the time of recreation and procreation, the time that inspires man and woman to couple, as if anyone needed an excuse. Shunga appeared prominently in the works of Hokusai, Utamaro, and many other revered woodcut artists.

In the Japan of the 1800’s, the color woodcut print was the most popular artform of the day. The artists of the so-called floating world or ukiyo-e portrayed real life personages and situations as the subject matter for their wood block prints. Ukiyo-e artists created extraordinary portraits of Kabuki Actors, Geisha, Sumo Wrestlers, and other notables, as well as landscapes and architectural views of old Japan. The incredible artistic output of these highly skilled artists left us an accurate view of life in the Japan of yesteryear. There was however another aspect to the art of the ukiyo-e that few Westerners have heard of, that is the art of shunga, or… the Images of Spring.

The production of such images kept most ukiyo-e artists very busy. In fact there were no artists of the time who remained uninvolved with the creation of shunga. The artists of the floating world many times created highly charged sexual imagery, erotic imagery, what Westerners would categorize as “pornographic” pictures.

Ukiyo-e artists created these “Images of Spring” without the slightest notion of embarrassment or shame. There was no stigma attached to the production, sale, or purchase of shunga artworks, in fact the market for such artworks was a lively and lucrative one. Erotic images were not illegal and collections of shunga were sold in book form, called enpon.

This artistic output on the part of Japanese artists had no equivalent in the Western art of that time and illustrates a completely different attitude about sex and morality. The aesthetics of shunga reflected the Japanese view of the body and sex as being part of the natural world, a world that held no concept of original sin.

It was a longstanding tradition that brides of feudal lords bring a collection of shunga to go along with their wedding furniture. There was also a tradition of feudal lords placing shunga in their helmet box whenever they had a new suit of armor made. These customs were a talismanic wish for eternal happiness and many artists made a comfortable living as a result.

The sale of shunga to a high-ranking person would bring enough money to sustain an artist for months, and so many notable, first rate and highly accomplished artists devoted themselves to this unprecedented artform. The level of detail with which ukiyo-e artists portrayed the human body revealed complete familiarity with anatomy and sexuality. Practically speaking the “Images of Spring” also served as a form of sex education for the sons and daughters of the well to do. This type of frank, accurate, and free representation of sexual matters was not to be seen in the West for at least another one hundred and fifty years.

There is limited knowledge of this artform outside of Japan, and in Japan itself shunga is scarcely seen or spoken of these days. However, the aesthetics of shunga still resonate in the contemporary world of certain manga and anime productions. The venerable art of shunga is the root for some modern day Japanese adult comic titles, proving without a doubt that eroticism in contemporary anime and manga is not at all a new phenomenon copied or borrowed from the West.

Those who are well acquainted with Japan’s enormous manga industry should be familiar with the genre of comic known as hentai (or “perverted”). These contemporary publications often focus on explicit “adult” material, but they have a clear artistic connection to the past in that their themes can be traced back to shunga. Shunga artworks are much more than mere “dirty pictures.”

The prints are of considerable artistry and cultural importance. In fact quite a few prestigious art museums around the world, especially in Japan, have collections of the highly prized risque prints (though they are not generally on public display).

Some scenes portrayed in shunga prints involve tender courting and romance, with all the attendant trappings of flirtation. Many of the prints offer scenes that leave nothing to the imagination. Couples are pictured in states of partial undress, in the throes of passionate lovemaking, utilizing a variety of positions and techniques.

There are even prints that depict lovely young ladies pleasuring themselves, a sight nearly totally absent from the annals of Western art! Whatever the sensual delights portrayed, the prints always manage to do so with sophistication and a certain elegance. Shunga prints are one of the overlooked treasures of traditional Japanese fine art. The “Images of Spring” should be properly recognized as high art, and at the same time preserved and studied for being one of the world’s greatest graphic art forms.

LAMP by Bob Kessel from SHUNGA art series

Bob Kessel has created a new art series titled, “SHUNGA” based on Japanese woodblock prints. Shunga (春画) is a Japanese term for erotic art. Most shunga are a type of ukiyo-e, usually executed in woodblock print format. While rare, there are extant erotic painted handscrolls which predate the Ukiyo-e movement. Translated literally, the Japanese word shunga means picture of spring; “spring” is a common euphemism for sex. In the Edo period it was enjoyed by rich and poor, men and women, and despite being out of favour with the shogunate, carried very little stigma. Almost all ukiyo-e artists made shunga at some point in their careers, including Hokusai, Utamaro, Harunobu, Eisen, Saeshi, Shigenobu, Issho and Moronobu, and it did not detract from their prestige as artists.

The pictures are available as limited edition original fine art prints, signed and numbered by the artist.
Contact Bob Kessel for prices and availability.

Recently there has been many new pictures added to Bob Kessel’s Shunga art series. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the shunga webpage receives 10 times the hits of any other Bob Kessel art series.

STARS & STRIPES

SHUNGA STARS by Bob Kessel

SHUNGA STRIPES by Bob Kessel

In October 1990 I was living in a small mountain town in Hyogo Prefecture.  I write about this town in the stories “Etsuko” and “Enlightenment”, whose links you can find at the top of this page.  I was a middle school teacher.  Come the season of red and gold, it occurred to me that in the spirit of cultural outreach I should find a pumpkin and carve a Jack-o-Lantern for and with the students.

My Japanese counterpart teachers (of English) liked the idea and a big pumpkin was found and brought into the school without much trouble.  A few days before Halloween, in a corner of one of the school hallways, I carved it in stages throughout the school day as students gathered around, amazed.  Several of them helped me scoop-out the insides of Jack’s skull.  Others handed me tools, acting as my nurses in the operating room.  Good times.  When, towards the end of the day, the job was done and the candle was lit and placed just so in Jack’s now-empty skull, I gave a signal and the lights were extinguished in the hall.  Gasps rippled up and down the flock of students nearby.  They had never seen such a thing.

While that wasn’t that long ago, it was long ago enough: Halloween — with its origins dating back well more than a millenium with the Celts of Northern France and the British Isles, brought to America in fits and starts during the 1700s, popularized by Irish immigrants during the latter half of the 19th Century, and supremely commercialized in the States after WWII — is now a Japanese holiday, in the strictly commercial, kitschy sense.

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"The Ghost of Koheiji". Woodblock print. Hokusai. 1830.

But ghosts and goblins and the creepy stories surrounding them have their own long tradition in Japan (as is the case in every culture).  Celebrated Edo Period wood block artist Hokusai (1760-1849) created a series of Kabuki-inspired “ghost story” prints around 1830, “Hyaku Monogatari”.  Above you see the print, “The Ghost of Koheiji”, based on an 1803 story-turned-kabuki-play by Santo Kyoden (poet, writer and woodblock artist).  Koheiji was betrayed and murdered by his wife.  So, naturally, he comes back from the dead to torment her and her lover by slipping under the mosquito netting around their bedding and joining and doling out horrific justice on them.   Below is famous, The Ghost of O-Iwa, a woman murdered by her husband who came back in phantasmic form to haunt and exactly bloody vengeance on her loathsome husband.

The Ghost of O-Iwa. Lantern writing's the Buddhist prayer, "Praise to Amida Buddha"

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Going back a good 1,000 years into early Japanese Buddhist tradition are the tormented “Hungry Ghosts”, or “gaki“.   Gaki are the spirits of those whose lives were consumed with avarice, greed and narcissism (today’s “social climbers”), while leaving their humanity on the back burner (or no burner at all) — you get the picture.  Seems in the afterlife such people will be assigned to wander through –  but never visible to  –  the living world, all disgusting with their distended bellies, wracked with hunger and able to eat only the bowel movements of those in the corporeal world.  They are all around us today, in fact.  Quite the disgusting ghost story and morality tale, all rolled into one and very reminiscent to me of Jesus’ parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, where in death the Rich Man begs Abraham, “‘Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish.’  But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things and Lazarus in like manner received like manner of evil things; but now he is comforted and you are in anguish. . . .’” (Luke 16:24, 25).

"Gaki", or Hungry Ghosts (detail from scroll). Late 12th Century.

.    .    .

After decades of bouncing from job to job and occasionally living in poverty, Lafcadio Hearn arrived in Japan from the U.S. in 1890 and began teaching Middle School in Matsue  –  a town not far from mine — and fell in love with Japan.  Hearn became one of the first Western “Windows on Japan” and Japanese culture through his books and essays on every day life, Japan’s educational system (which is not too different a 100 years later) and . . . Ghost Stories he collected over his years living in Japan.  Note:  one of the world’s largest Hearn collections is located in the Rare Books section of the University of Alabama.

Just for this week (I’ll take it down on Nov. 1)  I’ve put together s Gallery of Creepy & Bizarre Photos from some of my Japan travels (Note:  taken down on November 1.  Check again next year).   Not all of them are “scary”.   Perhaps “Bizarre” is the better word.  Note that several of them are, well, “cute”.  But cute can be bizarre, cute can be creepy, cute can be disturbing.  Just recall that next-to-last scene in Brazil . . .  Happy Halloween Week.

~    ~    ~    ~    ~

October 30 Update

Word up from Creepy Canada.  I met the blogmistress of that one in 1990 . . .  in Japan.

I typically get Harper’s magazine at work, but a week or two ago I was at the book store with some time to kill. There and elsewhere. So I figured, Oh, what the hell, and I bought the latest issue. Not such a hard decision, but definitely made easier when I saw that the piece of fiction in that particular issue was a new one by Jonathan Lethem. He has a new novel coming out, entitled Chronic City, so I assumed it would be a selection from that. Well, having read the story, called “The Dreaming Jaw, The Salivating Ear,” I doubt it. But it’s interesting, nonetheless. Very interesting.

from here.

The first paragraph:

“I do not think I shall visit my blog anymore. It is not so much the smell that discourages me—gulls have skeletonized the corpse in the entranceway, and the lapping tide has salt-rinsed the floorboards where the intruder’s blood was once caked as thick as fruit-leather—as it is a certain malodor of memory persisting there. The stink of my disappointment being that stink which the sea’s salt can never rinse.”

If I’ve learned anything from this story, it’s that your blog is your fortress, and you are a warrior. Protect your kingdom. And remember: You are not a mariner. Your blog is perhaps not a boat, but regardless, the tide is coming in…

Another line: “I offer this, my blog, to the world, but I do not require the world to need it or accept it, for it is my very own blog.”

from here.

Come si stampa un Ukiyo-e

Il procedimento e i l’illustrazione pratica dei vari passaggi per preparare e stampare un Ukiyo-e.
L’esempio trattato seguendo visivamente tutte le varie fasi del procedimento riguarda
la “Grande onda a Kanagawa” di Katsushika Hokusai, 1829.

The Honolulu Academy of Arts recently opened a new special exhibition, entitled “Hokusai’s Summit: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji.” I missed the opening, but visited yesterday, once in the morning, when it was nice and quiet, and again in the evening for the Academy’s monthly “Art After Dark” shindig, when it was an absolute madhouse.

The exhibit centers on Hokusai’s famous woodblock print series, the “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji.” The Academy is one of a very few museums to own a full set of all 46 (no, that’s not a typo. Due to popular demand, Hokusai did an extra ten). Overexposed though they may be – there’s more to Japanese art than Hokusai, and there’s more to Hokusai than the views of Fuji – they really are very impressive, interesting, intriguing images. While I am sure that a great many visitors are drawn in by an opportunity to see the Great Wave off Kanagawa, I hope they stay and take the time to look closely at the other images in the series, especially the ones less widely known, less widely seen. While even I very often cannot help but to dismiss, at first glance, works like these as yet another example of a style I’ve seen so many times before, stop, and look, and you will see that Hokusai, in fact, does some truly amazing things with perspective, with detail, and with color and shading that belie the apparent simplicity of the forms. I find that most ukiyo-e works that way, in fact.

In some of the images, he draws Fuji in only a single, simple outline, describing the unique and distinctive shape of the mountain. Many show a gradual fading of color, particularly seen in the blue of the sky, a testament to the incredible skills of his blockcutter and printer. Hokusai didn’t carve his own blocks, you see, nor make the prints himself. Very few, if any, ukiyo-e artists did. He only did the designs, which someone else then transferred into the blocks, and then back onto paper.

The exhibit makes an attempt to convey this, with a corner devoted to describing the process, displaying woodblocks and prints in various stages of completion, along with a compact and very nicely done timeline chronology of ukiyo-e. Visitors are encouraged, as they make their way around the exhibit, to recreate Hokusai’s “Red Fuji” on the back of their guidebook with different woodblocks placed around the exhibit – one with blue ink for the sky, one with red ink for the mountain, one with black ink for the outlines and details, etc. – a smart hands-on element that might really help visitors to appreciate and understand the process. Oh, and yes, there are these little guidebooks, totally for free, provided by the museum – something I very much applaud and appreciate. Fifteen pages, full color, with solid descriptions of the floating world (ukiyo), the woodblock print-making process, Mt Fuji in culture and mythology, hiking Mt Fuji, reading woodblock prints, Hokusai’s biography, and of the Thirty-Six Views.

Something else this exhibit did very well in my opinion was the inclusion of other works, to supplement the context and understanding of Mt Fuji in art, and of Hokusai’s predecessors, contemporaries and successors. It does a lot to put the Thirty-Six Views in context, describing both the wider role of Fuji in other artworks and in culture and attitudes more generally, as well as something of Hokusai’s biography and background.

Upon entering the exhibit, one is presented with a series of images of Fuji by a variety of big name Edo period artists, including the literati painter Tomioka Tessai and ranga (Western-style) painter Shiba Kôkan. A most amazing piece lies in the center of this section of the exhibit – a birds-eye view map of Mt Fuji, on a number of woodblock prints by Utagawa Sadahide, created to be assembled in a particular manner and somehow held up, to form a three-dimensional form. I wish they had an image of it on their public online database so I could share it with you. The focus of the exhibit may be on Hokusai’s work, but for me, this was the absolute jewel of the exhibition.

Progressing further into the gallery, one corner deals with Hokusai’s earlier work in ukiyo-e, before he started working on landscapes, back when he was doing actor prints (yakusha-e) and pictures of beauties (bijinga) under the names Katsukawa Shunrô and others. I don’t believe I had ever seen a Shunrô image before, so this was a special treat.

The forty-six prints making up the Thirty-Six Views series take up roughly half the gallery. After making your way through these, the final section features roughly ten prints by Hiroshige, Hokusai’s younger contemporary and easily a close runner-up to Hokusai in fame today. Seeing Hiroshige’s images of Fuji more or less right next to Hokusai’s really helps one to understand and appreciate the similarities and differences between the two.

The Honolulu Academy claims to have the third largest collection of Japanese woodblock prints in the US, and the largest of works by Hokusai. I hope they continue to make use of their space and to share these works with us; there are obviously some incredible treasures included in the collection.

PS I just came across this website with an interactive map of where each of the 36 views is seen from or takes place. Only in Japanese, I’m afraid.

Honolulu Academy of Arts

It felt like all of Honolulu came to see the 36-plus views of Mount Fuji at the Honolulu Academy of Arts last night. More than 900 people stood in line to enter the opening of “Hokusai’s Summit: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” at our city’s art museum.

I skipped my tai chi class to meet my friend Becky at the corner of Victoria and Beretania, and at 7 o’clock the line extended around the block. Neither of us had eaten dinner, but it was so crowded that we opted to bypass the refreshments and headed for the gallery.

This special exhibition that will extend for several months from now and into 2010 offers the opportunity to study the work of Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), who lived during the Edo period when a new art called ukiyo-e emerged. It is believed that he made 30,000 works of art and published more than 270 books. His life was dedicated to drawing.

The Honolulu Academy of Arts is known for its fine Asian collection, within which there are more than 10,000 Japanese woodblock prints. The collection includes a rare complete set of the famous Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series by Hokusai. This is what the Academy of Arts has put on public display.

The exhibit is rounded out by items about the woodblock printing process, about Hokusai’s stylistic development, of Mount Fuji by the artist Hiroshige, and of Mount Fuji by other painters. Reading the “Visitors’ Guide” handout and the labels next to each piece of art when I have more time will give me a working knowledge of the subject for sure.

What impressed me last night was how woodblock printing lends itself to simplicity and a limited color ink palette, something I can try in my own work. Hokusai was so skilled in drawing, he could incorporate the detail of human activity that I found delightful and often amusing. And, of course, it was fun to see all the different treatments of Mount Fuji.

I also was very impressed by the turnout! In the crowd I bumped into my high school journalism teacher, former work associates, other artists and writers, my cousin, “the ants” (like ants at a picnic), and many whose faces I’ve seen around town but couldn’t place because of the different venue. When Becky and I were tired of rubbing shoulders, literally, we decided it was refreshment time: sake-tasting, fruity punch, cubed cheddar, cubed pepper jack, lavosh, and sweet gingery senbei crackers. Becky, who is a member of the Academy of Arts, said there are three or four major exhibitions a year and that the openings are popular events. You can say that again. Long live the arts!

Copyright 2009 Rebekah Luke

Sentite questa. Un mio caro amico si reca a vedere la mostra di Monet a Milano e resta un po’ stranito davanti a un’opera di Hokusai, Cardellino e ciliegio-piangente, xilografia policroma del 1834. Gli sembra che non sia appeso nel senso giusto perché il cardellino è in equilibrio precario, non si capisce come possa stare in quel modo sul ramo («sembra un acrobata in bilico su un filo; ma cardellino mica fa l’equilibrista»). Incuriosito va a sfogliare il catalogo e vede che in effetti è riprodotta come a lui sembra più naturale. Decide di togliersi una soddisfazione e chiede alla custode di quella sala se nessuno ha notato niente di strano in quell’opera di Hokusai. Lei risponde che in effetti è vero ma che mancano pochi giorni alla chiusura e quindi  raddrizzarlo adesso suonerebbe un po’ come una beffa. E aggiunge: « Se è per questo, avevano anche appeso al contrario un grande quadro  di Monet quello con le nuvole che si riflettono nell’acqua sotto le ninfee. Avevano messo l’acqua al di sopra, pensando che fosse il cielo. Per fortuna se ne sono accorti subito».

Morale: il cardellino è nato così, appeso al niente, proprio dalla fantasia di Hokusai. Nel catalogo è stato riprodotto rovesciato (sciatterie a cui siamo purtroppo allenati). Il mio amico si è divertito e ha capito che l’occhio giapponese guarda al mondo con coordinate diverse dalle nostre. La custode si è tolta una piccola soddisfazione. Io forse ho capito che questo occhio galleggiante sulle cose è l’aspetto di Hokusai che più può aver interessato Monet.

(Purtroppo nella breve indagine ho scoperto anche una cosa orrenda: l’home page del sito della mostra ha un effetto che con il mouse fa agitare l’acqua delle Ninfee, e le fa sembrare tutte di gelatina. Non c’è limite al peggio).

Unfortunately there is no time for a detailed ‘Saturday Volcano Art’ essay this week, so please just enjoy this tranquil image of Mount Fuji by the Japanese artist and printmaker Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), ‘Mount Fuji seen through cherry blossom’, from One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (1834).

For all ‘Saturday volcano art’ articles: Saturday volcano art « The Volcanism Blog.

The title of this exhibition disguises an amusing conceit. On show are two sets of views from opposite sides of the world. First off is classical Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai’s series of ukiyo-e (woodblock) prints entitled ‘36 Views of Mount Fuji’, while across the way are 36 views of the Eiffel Tower by French artist Henri Rivière. Take time to study the images, which pit nature’s magnificence against man’s ingenuity, and decide for yourself which comes out on top.

Un petit quelque chose dont je suis plutot contente, pour quelqu un a qui je tiens et qui malheureusement n est plus la.

Η φωτογραφία που εχω τοποθετήσει στην επικεφαλιδα του ιστολογίου είναι απο το όρος Fujiyama. Είχα την τύχη να επισκεφθώ την Ιαπωνία την Ανοιξη του 2008. Το Fujiyama είναι ένα απο τα 100 μέρη στον κόσμο που αξίζει κανείς να δει στην ζωή του. Είναι ο τέλειος κώνος, το τέλειο βουνό. Όπως και ο δικός μας Όλυμπος μοιάζει να είναι μαγικό. Από μακριά τα σύννεφα παίζουν απίθανα παιχνίδια με την κορυφή του. Είναι ένα βούνο που υμνήθηκε απο τους ποιητές πολεμιστές  Σαμουράι της Ιαπωνίας και ζωγραφίστηκε απο μεγάλους Ιάπωνες ζωγράφους όπως ο Katsushika Hokusai

Απο τότε που το επισκέφτηκα μαγεύτηκα και εγώ απο το Fujiyama. Όταν κάτι με χαλάει κοιτώ μια φωτογραφία του ή ένα απο τα σχέδια του Hokusai και αμέσως η διάθεση μου φτιάχνει.

Ο δράκος του καπνού ξεφεύγει απο το Fuji