Gem of the Month: Guanyin
Seated in the “position of royal ease” (rajalilasana in Hindu), this portrayal of the bodhisattva Guanyin mirrors hundreds of other versions of the subject in Chinese art. The pose was inf ...
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Curator’s Corner
Auspicious Friend for the New Year
Pine trees are one of the three “auspicious friends”—plants (along with bamboo and plum blossom) that help welcome the New Year in Japan. Pines are auspicious because they survive an ...
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Curator’s Corner
The Month of Frost
It’s the last day of November 2020. In Japan, the historical (traditional) calendar was based on the Chinese lunar calendar, which meant that months began three to seven weeks later than the Gre ...
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Curator’s Corner
Kittens and Bunnies
It’s been a crazy year with this awful pandemic going on, and an equally crazy last two weeks with this nutty election. I think we all need some kittens and bunnies to recoup our mental health. ...
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Curator’s Corner
Realism of Ceramics Artist Ah Leon
I was blown away the first time I saw this artist’s work, and I’m certain you will have the same reaction. We all know about the great ceramic tradition of Eastern cultures such as China, ...
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Curator’s Corner
Second Leader of the Kanō School
At the end of this week, August 28, we remember the anniversary of the passing of Kanō Motonobu (1476–1559) of the illustrious Kanō School. Not really a “school,” the Kanō School was ...
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Curator’s Corner
Rethinking Romanticism Part 2
This week’s Rethinking Romanticism series continues with romanticism in Japanese art. The Kamakura period (1185–1333) was a particularly turbulent, civil-war-ravaged era in Japan. It is th ...
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Curator’s Corner
Rethinking Classicism Part 3
My Rethinking Classicism series continues with landscapes of the Southern Song style. The early Song period (900s CE) witnessed the rise of a great school of landscape painting that endured as the mea ...
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Curator’s Corner
Rethinking Classicism Part 2
I’m continuing my investigation into different ways of interpreting classicism in art with a look at a classic style from India. Most major encyclopedic museums likely have in their collections ...
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Curator’s Corner
World Watercolor Month: Yosa Buson
If any artists could be called the “masters” of watercolor, it would be the artists of Asia—particularly far eastern Asia (Japan, China, Korea)—who, for centuries, used in ...
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