Tag - japanese-art

 
 

JAPANESE ART

CULTURE / Art
Jun 4, 2014
'Essays in Idleness: Enjoying Classical Literature Through Art'
The collection of essays "Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness)" written by Yoshida Kenko in 1330-31 is considered as one of the three greatest zuihitsu (collection of writings) in Japan, along with "Makura no Soshi (The Pillow book)" by Sei Shonagon and Kamo no Chomei's "Hojoki (An Account of My Hut)."...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 4, 2014
'Hirayama Ikuo: Message to the Next Generations'
Ikuo Hirayama (1930-2009), who experienced the World War II atomic bombing of Japan, based his artistic values on his strong Buddhist faith and his search for peace. He traveled along the Silk Road to research the history of Japanese art and worked on many bold and grand paintings with Buddhist themes,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 4, 2014
'Yasuyoshi Sugiura: A Natural History of Ceramics — Making Nature'
While attending college, Yasuyoshi Sugiura was moved by the words of his teacher, who told him, "ceramics are stones." This inspired the artist to explore the potential of clay as a medium, creating works such as the "Stones of Ceramics" series" that, as the title suggests, presented small, realistic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 28, 2014
The 'Great Wave' that reached the West
Ukiyo-e prints could be found in Europe from at least 1795 at the Cabinet des Estampes at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. It was not until the 1850s, however, when trade between Japan and Europe began to flourish, that the craze for things Japanese began to crescendo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 21, 2014
Japan's isolation didn't stop the West lending its colors
A common misperception of sakoku, Japan's closed-door isolation policy gradually enacted from 1633 by Tokugawa Iemitsu and his successors, is that Japan forsook the outside world.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 21, 2014
Naonori Oshima: What you see is less than what you actually get
'ON Harmonic Balance' is a dark, claustrophobic collection of images that, although they illustrate many of the tropes that are often associated with the snapshot aesthetic, come across as guileless and unforced.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 13, 2013
Illuminating the interplay between Japanese poetry and pictures
This cleverly titled book combines two subjects, for the "art" that it describes is not just the art of haiku composition but that of the pictures that frequently accompany the poems, often by the same person. "If haiku is a worldwide phenomenon, haiga (haiku painting) is almost unknown," says the author....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 9, 2013
Japan's Gutai artists celebrated like never before
"Do what no one has done before," was the rallying cry that Jiro Yoshihara, founder of the postwar Japanese art group the Gutai Art Association, demanded of his fellow members.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 2, 2013
Taking anime too seriously
'Why study anime?' the author of this study of anime asks himself. Good question, thinks the reader. Why indeed 'study' a pop art whose appeal is less to thought than to mass, unreflecting, spontaneous enjoyment?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / WEEK 3
Mar 17, 2013
How an American collector brought Jakuchu to Tohoku
Including loans from each of Japan's six national museums as well as the Imperial Household Agency, 'Jakuchu's Here!' represents to a gift from Japan's art establishment to an audience that it has neglected for decades.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 7, 2013
Hitoko Urago's 'Connected': blot-tests of portraiture
Hitoko Urago pairs paintings — portraits with abstractions — though each work is not necessarily conceived at the same time. "Untitled (Lynda)" (2012), for example, depicts a profile of a black woman with big hair against a green background. She is paired with a soft, spotty green abstraction, which...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 28, 2013
In New York, the Guggenheim goes Gutai
By now, the looks, character and history of Gutai, the post-World War II Japanese art movement born in 1954 in Ashiya, between Osaka and Kobe, are familiar to regular viewers of modern-art exhibitions in Japan. Last summer's "Gutai: The Spirit of an Era," a survey of the movement's evolution and its...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 18, 2012
'Cool Japan is over': a sociologist looks at Japan's art world
BEFORE AND AFTER SUPERFLAT: A Short History of Japanese Contemporary Art 1990-2011, by Adrian Favell. Blue Kingfisher, 2012, 246 pp., $24.95 (paper)

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone. 
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan