Gems of the Month: Aizuri-e
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
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
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
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
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
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
New Year for the Sensibilities
Leave it to Honoré Daumier to sum up a personality that could be any number of jerks in our current narrow-minded, materialistic, me-me-me culture. In honor of the advent of 2017, I decided to ...
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Curator's Corner
How Old Is This? Edo and Jutta Sika Ceramics
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
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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