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Curator's Corner

The Beauty of Wayō Shodō

Friday, October 30, 2015 | Karl Cole

Did you known that the Japanese did not have a written language up until the 400s CE? I find cursive Japanese so incredibly beautiful. The story behind its development is very interesting, and I bet y ...

Curator's Corner

The Essence of Essence

Monday, August 3, 2015 | Karl Cole

I’ve been reading manifestos by several early modernist artists from Europe recently (Kandinsky, Boccioni, Doesburg), and a recurring thought comes out in all of their writings. It is the idea t ...

Curator's Corner

A Neglected Japanese Printmaker: Gosōtei Hirosada

Monday, July 27, 2015 | Karl Cole

I’m pretty sure there’s generally a misconception about the ukiyo-e phenomenon in Japanese art. It is certainly one I had until I recently came across hundreds of gorgeous woodblock prints ...

Curator's Corner

Architecture or Sculpture? You Decide: Javanese Temples

Monday, March 2, 2015 | Karl Cole

I have been stunned recently by the overwhelming beauty of Hindu-Buddhist temples in Java. I think they rival the beauty of any architecture anywhere else in the world. It is interesting to compare th ...

Curator's Corner

Survey No. 12: Abstraction

Monday, February 2, 2015 | Karl Cole

In our art history survey, we are now at the end with the 1900s. The big “revelation” in Western art starting very late in the 1800s and flowering in the early 1900s was abstraction. Abstr ...

Curator's Corner

Survey No. 11: Unknown Impressionists

Monday, January 26, 2015 | Karl Cole

Art in the 1800s brought us the terms Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and Realism, covered in my New Slant on Art History. The second half of the century saw a major shift in how artists used art to portr ...

Curator's Corner

Survey No. 10: Ubiquitous Real

Monday, January 19, 2015 | Karl Cole

So far we have taken a look at Classicism and Romanticism around the world in the 1800s. Now let’s look at “realism,” which—like every other style—has been a trend somewh ...

Curator's Corner

Survey No. 5: 1400s/1500s II

Friday, December 12, 2014 | Karl Cole

Sometimes I wonder if, unfortunately, most Westerners only know about Korea in relation to that unfortunate war in the 1950s or because of contemporary politics in North Korea. This is yet anothe ...

Curator's Corner

Survey No. 3: Middle Ages

Monday, November 24, 2014 | Karl Cole

I’m not quite sure when the historical/art historical/cultural/religious term “Medieval” (the confluence of the Latin “medius,” middle, and “aevum,” age) came ...

Curator's Corner

Survey No. 1: Ancient

Monday, November 10, 2014 | Karl Cole

When I was in grad school, I was a teaching assistant in an art history survey course that had the neatest syllabus at which I ever squinted at eight in the morning. It did not go chronologically thro ...

Curator's Corner

Saturated Autumn Color: Meiji Period

Tuesday, November 4, 2014 | Karl Cole

I know I showed a Japanese artist’s work last week, but I got so excited when I came across this woodcut print that I just had to share it with you. It’s a perfect example of saturation&nb ...

Curator's Corner

Layered Magnificence: Miyashita Zenji

Tuesday, October 28, 2014 | Karl Cole

I am eternally grateful for the ability to be “wowed” on a continual basis when I see works of art/artists I’ve never seen before! This may just be the art historian nerd in me, but ...

Curator's Corner

Commemorating Qi Baishi

Monday, September 16, 2013 | Karl Cole

Chinese painting, drawing, and graphic arts of the 20th and 21st centuries is an amazing combination of traditional and bold contemporary statements. Today I honor Qi Baishi, who died on this date in ...

Curator's Corner

What is "Contemporary Art"? Yoshitomo Nara

Monday, June 18, 2012 | Karl Cole

What comes to mind when you think “contemporary art”? I find it interesting that Picasso and Abstract Expressionism are still considered, by some, to be “contemporary” in ...

Curator's Corner

Kacho-e: Ohara Koson

Monday, April 4, 2011 | Karl Cole

Today’s post is about my epiphany of the week. In a previous post I introduced you to the early 1900s phenomenon in Japanese woodblock prints called sosaku hanga. That was the continuation of th ...

Curator's Corner

Korean Folk Art: Minhwa Chaekgado

Tuesday, September 29, 2009 | Karl Cole

Every culture in history all over our planet has produced folk art, i.e. art intended for the everyday person, rather than wealthy or noble patrons. Although similar to so-called “primitive&rdqu ...

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The Beauty of Wayō Shodō

The Essence of Essence

A Neglected Japanese Printmaker: Gosōtei Hirosada

Architecture or Sculpture? You Decide: Javanese Temples

Survey No. 12: Abstraction

Survey No. 11: Unknown Impressionists

Survey No. 10: Ubiquitous Real

Survey No. 5: 1400s/1500s II

Survey No. 3: Middle Ages

Survey No. 1: Ancient

Saturated Autumn Color: Meiji Period

Layered Magnificence: Miyashita Zenji

Commemorating Qi Baishi

What is "Contemporary Art"? Yoshitomo Nara

Kacho-e: Ohara Koson

Korean Folk Art: Minhwa Chaekgado

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