Claude Monet was smitten by Japanese art: Impressionism and ukiyo-e Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times Claude Monet was very important within French Impressionism and despite new artistic movements like Cubism and Fauvism altering the artistic landscape, he remained firmly committed to Impressionist art. Another major art theme which would shape Claude Monet was Japanese [...]
Japan tourism and culture: Hakone Jinja, historical treasure museum and Mount Fuji James Jomo and Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times Hakone is a very popular tourist destination because you have so many places to visit and the views of Mount Fuji in certain locations are extremely stunning. Throughout Hakone you have many museums and [...]
Japanese tourism and art: Hakone and Hokusai Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times Katsushika Hokusai was a sublime Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker and his art had many faces and styles. However, when you think about the stunning nature of Hakone then the refined art of Hokusai springs to mind. Alternatively, if you close [...]
The Japanese woodblock print artist Nana Shiomi By toshidama From time to time we like to look at the connections between traditional ukiyo-e and contemporary art. One contemporary Japanese woodblock artist of particular note is Nana Shiomi whose work in extending the reach of the medium and embedding traditional iconography and motifs in the contemporary mien [...]
The Pachyderm in the Room – Kuniyoshi’s Elephant By toshidama The elephant has long presented artists of all genres with a problem. The elephant is exotic, clearly enormous and spectacular but in captivity it lacks the dynamism, the heroism that its reputation suggests. Very few artists have successfully represented the elephant and because of the [...]
Utagawa Toyokuni and ukiyo-e: a modest artist who was graceful Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times Utagawa Toyokuni was born in 1769 and died in 1825 and he gave a rather negative comment about his artistic merits. Indeed, many individuals have wide opinions about Toyokuni and he himself reportedly commented that “My pictures – they [...]
Cezanne and Hokusai and the Mountainous Motif By toshidama Here are two great artists of the nineteenth century – innovators, visionaries and both of them artists of great influence. Both Hokusai and Cezanne have in different ways exerted huge influence over the course of art, certainly in the west during the crucial period of the avante [...]
Imaginary Journeys – Hiroshige’s Tokaido Road By toshidama There are two recent publications celebrating Hiroshige’s views of Japan: Nancy Gaffield’s poem cycle Tokaido Road (C B Editions £7.99) and Taschen’s Hiroshige – 100 Famous Views of Edo. The former is an imaginary journey along the famous Tokaido highway; one poem for each of the 53 stations, [...]
On Being a Picture Dealer & The Trouble With Hiroshige By toshidama I’ve combined two posts here because they are related. To start with I’d like to look at the relationships between dealer, artwork, value and marketplace. Let’s start with the dealer. As in every walk of life, no two dealers or galleries are the [...]
The Japanese woodblock print artist Nana Shiomi By toshidama From time to time we like to look at the connections between traditional ukiyo-e and contemporary art. One contemporary Japanese woodblock artist of particular note is Nana Shiomi whose work in extending the reach of the medium and embedding traditional iconography and motifs in the contemporary mien [...]
Katsushika Hokusai: Japanese artist with a rich legacy Modern Tokyo Times Lee Jay Walker Japanese art in all its majesty can be viewed in abundance by the lifework of Katsushika Hokusai. Hokusai was born in 1760 and he died in 1849 and despite living in the Edo period he was a free spirit from a [...]
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