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November 22, 2024
 

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Matthew Larking
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 7, 2016
Japan's conflicted art of World War II
The Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art's current exhibition, "1945±5: The Works that Survived through the Turbulent and Reconstruction Era," showcases modern Japanese art five years either side of the pivotal end of World War II. It addresses oil painting and mostly follows a conventional tale of Japan...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 21, 2016
Arita ware: Traditional Japanese porcelain has an international history
This year is ostensibly the 400th anniversary of Arita-yaki (Arita ware). An Arita city webpage tells us it was in 1616 that a forcibly relocated Korean farmer, Yi Sam-pyeong, discovered the white clay kaolin and then fired Japan's first porcelain. Other scholars have dated the first firing to 1610,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 17, 2016
The many portraits of an artist as a young, and older, man
As photographer Yasumasa Morimura has predominantly made his name since 1985 in eccentric self-portraiture involving impersonations of famous people, his current exhibition is conceptually and structurally all autobiography. It is a tale serially told through chapters with a beginning, middle-stage developments...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 3, 2016
Hakuin's picture of Zen Buddhism
Zen, traced to the ancient teachings of the Buddha Shakyamuni, took root in China via India around 1,500 years ago through the first Zen patriarch, Bodhidharma. Spread there by the priest Linji Yixuan (Rinzai Gigen, died 867), it was transmitted to Japan in the Kamakura Period (1185-1333) and patronized...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 12, 2016
Putting some faith into the art of decoration
The titular kazari (decoration or ornament) as the focus of "Kazari: Decoration in Faith and Festival," the Miho Museum's spring exhibition, is intended to restore something of the centrality of its concept of decorative embellishment to Japanese art. While the exhibits are consummate, however, the main...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 1, 2016
The dyeing art of Japan's traditional everyday kimono
Weaver and dyer Fukumi Shimura's (b.1924) inherited an interest in craft from her mother, Toyo Ono, who made inroads through the early 20th-century mingei (folk crafts) movement led by philosopher Muneyoshi Yanagi. Introduced to the lacquer artistan Tatsuaki Kuroda in 1956, Shimura began to hone her...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 9, 2015
The ornate history of embroidery
"Transcendent Artful Embroidery II" at the Kobe Fashion Museum is a cross-cultural look at the perfections of needle craft across several centuries. It gets underway with a section on garments of Indian nobles and Chinese court dresses of the 19-20th centuries and then segues into Japanese aesthetic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 19, 2015
Seeing beyond Jiro Takamatsu's shadows
"Jiro Takamatsu: Trajectory of Work" is taxonomic, breaking down everything in the artist's oeuvre into relatively neat successions of projects and including his paintings and sculptures, copious sketches and the marginalia. Even the catalog seemingly calls for a scientific approach, this exhibition...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 21, 2015
Diversity saved the Kano school
Kyoto National Museum's "Kano Painters of the Momoyama Period: Eitoku's Legacy" is the follow up exhibition to the 2007 "Kano Eitoku, Momoyama Painter Extraordinaire" and focuses on Eitoku's successors who produced work during the period 1596-1615.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 26, 2015
Nihonga didn't ignore the West
From the early 1880s, painting in Japan became bisected. Yōga was used to categorize works in oils that were inspired by European painting movements and nihonga became the umbrella term for a whole array of earlier Japanese painting traditions that were later modernized.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 29, 2015
Art is long, when life can be short
Given Japan's continual seismic activity, what happened at 5:46 a.m. on Jan. 17, 1995, was unavoidable. The devastation and loss of life that occurred with the magnitude 7.3 quake in Kansai became a yardstick only now surpassed by the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. While the aftereffects of the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 22, 2015
Where Buddhism and Shintoism meet
Works from the Tendai Buddhist Gakuenji temple in Shimane Prefecture form the feature exhibition of Kyoto National Museum's New Year's show. Tradition tells that the priest Chishun established Gakuenji around the time of the Empress Suiko (554-628) though centuries passed before it was first alluded...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 4, 2014
A revue of Japan's femininity
Ichizo Kobayashi (1873-1957) was the founder of the West Japan Hankyu train line and department store in Osaka's central Umeda district. Arguably his most significant artistic contribution was the establishment of the Takarazuka Music School in 1913, which combined a modern education with the training...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 7, 2014
Daigoji Temple celebrates its collection
World Heritage Site, Daigoji Temple, was founded on the summit of Mount Kasatori in southeastern Kyoto when the monk Rigen Daishi Shobo (832-909) is said to have discovered a spring from which flowed the "ultimate taste, representing the highest state of Buddhist wisdom." From 876, he had produced statues...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 31, 2014
Lacquerware's overseas journey into the arts
Rejuvenating the traditional lacquer industry was done by emulating international exposition models, and they sold well. At the 1873 Vienna International Exhibition, lacquer by Zeshin Shibata and Taishin Ikeda received progress medals.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 24, 2014
Balthus' renaissance of Realism
Paris-born Balthus Klossowski de Rola (1908-2001) is considered by some to be comparable to Picasso, though it was Picasso who said that Balthus was the 'last great painter of the 20th century.' From Picasso's Cubism onward, painting no longer needed to mirror the world 'as seen.' Balthus, by contrast, was a classic Realist with an occasional Surrealist twinge.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 10, 2014
Combinations that break the surface like a lotus flower
At exhibitions, ancient ceramics tend not to be the draw card that contemporary photography can be. With this in mind, The Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, has combined the two together.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 3, 2014
World-weary and resigned, yet the samurai spirit soldiers on
Since the emergence of conceptual art in the 1960s, artistic skill and superlative craftsmanship came to be derided as almost artistic embarrassment, a suspect accusation leveled at the supposed old guard who took pride in their technical proficiency. Think of Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol, their artistic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 25, 2014
The evolution of Seiki Kuroda
In all too-common sophomoric slight to artists is: 'A child could have done that.' Seiki Kuroda (1866-1924), the most significant Western-style painter in Japan's early modern history, however, shows that even some young adults can not accomplish what takes years to hone.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 18, 2014
The Uemuras were not quite like mother, like son
Shoko Uemura (1902-2001) was born to Shoen Uemura, the most revered and financially successful female painter of the early modern period, who arguably did more to popularize the bijinga genre (pictures of beautiful women) than any other. Artistically, however, his mother is said to have taught him nothing.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
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By Kathryn Wortley

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