Peace for the New Year
The last couple of years have been rather stressful for all of us, I would imagine, what with the pandemic and all its consequences. When I’m stressed out, I tend to want to look at art; the mor ...
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Curator's Corner
Gem of the Month: Hashimoto Gahō
I have such an admiration for Japanese monochromatic painting that I decided to celebrate the firm establishment of autumn with one of my favorite nihon-ga artists, who was also featured for his winte ...
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Curator's Corner
Romance Awareness Month: Suzuki Harunobu, Etruria, Safavid
I was not aware of the association of romance with the month of August, but I think it’s refreshing. On one website that explains national month days, it said that “February isn’t th ...
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Curator's Corner
To Mask or Not to Mask
The word “mask” gets an emotional response from some folks in these days of pandemic. I wonder, if the masks we're asked to wear looked like these following examples from Davis Digital&rsq ...
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Curator's Corner
Kimono Patterns and Ukiyo-e Prints
The Worcester Art Museum is hosting a fascinating exhibit tying kimono design and its importance in the ukiyo-e print aesthetic. Ukiyo-e, meaning “images of the floating (i.e. transient physical ...
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Curator's Corner
Auspicious Friend for the New Year: Kanō Isen'in Naganobu
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: Hashimoto Gahō
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
Second Leader of the Kanō School: Kanō Motonobu
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: Kamakura Period
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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