Curator's Corner

Hiroshige

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Curator's Corner

Gems of the Month: Aizuri-e

Monday, October 24, 2022 | Karl Cole

This month, I’m celebrating aizuri-e, or “blue prints,” from Japan’s ukiyo-e style that flourished during the Edo Period (ca. 1615–1868). The color Prussian blue was intr ...

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Curator's Corner

National Garden Month 2021

Tuesday, April 20, 2021 | Karl Cole

It's National Garden Month and National Landscape Architecture Month. But I’ll deal with the landscape gardening later. I just want to show gorgeous art that may be slightly different than what ...

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Curator's Corner

Fuji (Wisteria) Matsuri: Utagawa Hiroshige

Monday, April 27, 2020 | Karl Cole

In Japan, April 21 to May 6 is the time of the Fuji Matsuri, or “Wisteria Festival.” During the festival, traditional music and dance are performed at the Kameido Tenjin shrine on the outs ...

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Curator's Corner

Chrysanthemum Day and Festival

Monday, September 9, 2019 | Karl Cole

I’ve shown this print on this blog before, but only in passing with other works concerning vacations. I’ve never gone into depth about a holiday that I think should be adapted around the w ...

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Curator's Corner

Let It Snow in Ukiyo-e Prints

Monday, February 25, 2019 | Karl Cole

We have had several snowfalls in the past couple of weeks. On Presidents’ Day I found myself staring at a snow-laden tree across the street and thinking, that looks like a Japanese woodcut of a ...

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Curator's Corner

Sumidagawa in July: Japanese Woodcuts

Monday, July 24, 2017 | Karl Cole

The actual festival of Sumidagawa (“Sumida River”) occurs in Tokyo in the last week of August, but there are fireworks in Tokyo from May through August, starting with the Opening of the Su ...

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Curator's Corner

Smoke: Maya, Hiroshige, Currier and Ives, James Rosenquist, Cai Guo-Qiang, Zoe Strauss

Monday, December 5, 2016 | Karl Cole

I happen to burn a lot of incense, because I think it’s nicer than any of those spray products that immediately fall to the floor and dissipate. And who wants a plug-in air freshener that runs u ...

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Curator's Corner

How Old Is This? Edo Period Abstraction

Tuesday, May 26, 2015 | Karl Cole

Lately, I can’t seem to get away from seeing “abstraction” in all sorts of places. I came across this wonderful Japanese bowl from the mid-1700s to mid-1800s, during the Edo period ( ...

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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 ...

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Curator's Corner

Happy New Year with Mary Petty

Wednesday, January 2, 2013 | Karl Cole

Between the 1700s and early 1900s, women artists were not standouts in public exhibitions of art. They were, however, always front and center in painting miniatures, genre scenes, portraits, and illus ...

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