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
Simplicity
The first week of August is called National Simplify Your Life Week. What says “simplicity” more than a series of paintings inspired by the Zen Buddhist philosophy of finding Enlightenment ...
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Curator’s Corner
Artists with August Birthdays
Monthly artists’ birthdays are a good way to introduce you to a variety of artists I actually adore, while contrasting art from vastly different cultures. I’m not going to call it “i ...
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Curator’s Corner
An Autumn Idyll from Japan
One of the most fascinating things I learned (among many fascinating things) while studying Japanese culture and art when in college, was that Japanese scholars would routinely debate the virtues of a ...
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