Japanese Art, Traditional Fashion and a Living Connection in Modern Japan Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times Ukiyo-e art in Japan focused on many themes during its “golden period” in the Edo period and carried on into the Meiji era. The world of Japan comes alive visually within many areas of ukiyo-e art because of [...]
Japanese Art in a Changing Environment: Kuniyoshi, Landscapes and Tranquility Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times Utagawa Kuniyoshi is among the crème de la crème of ukiyo-e artists because his work was truly amazing and so powerful. Kuniyoshi, just like other famous Japanese artists like Ando Hiroshige and Katsushika Hokusai, was very diverse. Also, the winds of [...]
Art and Fashion in the Eyes of Yōshū Chikanobu: Edo, Meiji and Western Influence Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times In modern day Japan the fashion scene is electric in major cities like Kobe, Osaka, and Tokyo. This applies to crème de la crème fashion and independent styles and the fusion of Japanese fashion, European [...]
David Bowie… Pop Goes Kabuki By toshidama Ukiyo-e artists have used kabuki, (traditional Japanese theatre) as subject matter for their woodblock prints more or less since its inception in the seventeenth century. David Bowie started experimenting with kabuki for his stage shows in 1973. By the time of his Aladdin Sane tour he was wearing actual kabuki costumes [...]
Japanese Shunga Prints – Art or Pornography? By toshidama It is the fashion, especially among connoisseurs, to make distinctions between erotica and pornography. However, it seems to me disingenuous to describe some images as pornographic and others as erotic when the distinction is only contextual or at least subjective. In the field of Japanese art, shunga is the [...]
Liberating the Nude By toshidama The picture to the left here is a woodblock print by Utagawa Kunisada from 1855. At first glance it seems unremarkable, albeit very beautiful; richly coloured and drawn with great originality. It is in fact a complex and fascinating thing, overlaid with meaning both within itself and outside in the [...]
Japanese and British Art and the influence of France: L.S. Lowry and Oka Shikanosuke Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times At first the artists L.S. Lowry (1887-1976) and Oka Shikanosuke (1898-1978) appear to be separated by very different cultural and social backgrounds. Similarly, from the industrial point of view, it is clear that Lowry resided [...]
Nigao – True Likeness in Japanese Prints By toshidama How important is a likeness in a work of art? Maybe not as important as it seems; elsewhere on this site we’ve looked at how potentially disastrous it would be to use Hiroshige’s 53 Stations of the Tokaido Road as a route map; and so it was for centuries that depictions [...]
Japan Art: Erotic Art, Sexuality and Landscapes by Ando Hiroshige Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times Ando Hiroshige is deemed to be one of the finest artists to bless the country of Japan and his art influenced famous artists like Van Gogh. Hiroshige leaves a lasting impression because of the work he produced. However, the [...]
Tall Tales and Japanese Woodblock Prints Alex Faulkner By toshidama Some stories persist; immune to cultural change, embroidered and adapted to different times, rising and falling in popularity and sometimes losing touch completely with their origins and their roots. None of this matters of course, what matters is what people make of a story, how cultures [...]
Bonsai Trees in Japanese Prints – Small is Beautiful By toshidama I suppose that if you were to ask most people about traditional Japanese culture, they would talk about geishas and samurai, sushi, kimonos and bonsai trees. It’s likely though that few people would know much about the bonsai tree and probably would not have seen one. [...]
Japanese Art and Traditional Fashion in Culture: Ito Shinsui and Bijinga Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times Ito Shinsui (1898-1972) is a “famous son” of Japanese art because his art is blessed with elegance, sophistication, and serenity. This is equally matched with natural simplicity and adorable color schemes when applied to his images of beautiful [...]
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