Kyoto Seishu Netsuke Art Museum: Current Exhibition Runs Until April 30 Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times The Kyoto Seishu Netsuke Art Museum is a specialist museum which highlights the amazing beauty and craftsmanship of netsuke. Currently, the Spring Exhibition on the Theme of “Next Stage” runs until April 30and the next exhibition will [...]
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 Art and Culture: Impact of Oda Nobunaga and Rich Art of Kano Eitoku Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times In modern Japan the importance of Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) and his legacy remains extremely strong even today. After all, he laid the foundation stone for the future centralized Japan despite certain limitations during the Tokugawa [...]
Japanese Folklore and Art: Kyosai and the World of the Tengu Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times The Japanese artist Kawanabe Kyosai is extremely fascinating because of his individualistic spirit and this is witnessed in his art. Kyosai, just like the mysterious Tengu, belonged to two worlds and this applies to the old Edo period [...]
Toshidama Gallery and Japanese art: stunning ukiyo-e By toshidama Why? Why would these artists paint the same motif so many times over so many years? There is undoubtedly for both artists a spiritual dimension to their constant interest. For Hokusai who was a devout Buddhist, as for many Japanese, Fuji was symbolic of eternal life, a [...]
Japanese Gifts – Toshidama Explained By toshidama People sometimes say to us: “what is a Toshidama?” The characteristic round seal seen on many nineteenth century Japanese prints is called a Toshidama Seal. It was used at some point by most artists of the Utagawa School. At first it looks like the silhouette of a diamond ring with four [...]
Japanese art and Keisai Eisen: Reality and unreality and the View of Shogetsu Pond Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times If one views the stunning image of the View of Shogetsu Pond by Keisai Eisen, then only images of tranquility, order and a nation at peace comes to mind. It appears that nature, order and [...]
Boys and Girls: Gender, Kabuki and Japanese Prints By toshidama Japanese prints can be confusing territory for those seeking certainty. Artists of the ukiyo-e revelled in “look and compare” pictures or mitate-e as it is called. Borrowing from the traditions of poetry, mitate-e pictures play ironically with the knowingness of the audience, substituting contemporary actors for historical characters or [...]
Japanese Art and Keisai Eisen: Brothel Owner to Images of Sublime Beauty Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times The artist Keisai Eisen highlights the many mass complexities of ukiyo-e within his own character. This applies to the massive complexity of the art he produced and the reality of the real world that he belonged to. [...]
Japanese art and Yuzo Saeki: the “outsider” who died in a distant land in an insane asylum Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times The artist Yuzo Saeki gave much to the Japanese art world despite dying at the age of 30. Yuzo Saeki was born in 1898 and passed away in 1928. However, despite his [...]
Japanese art and Keisai Eisen: the early life of this acclaimed ukiyo-e artist Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times Keisai Eisen (1790-1848) learnt to be independent from an early age and he chose a path which was fraught with economic danger. In a sense, Keisai Eisen represents aspects of “the real Edo period” for individuals [...]
Japanese art: Yuzo Saeki and “At Eternity’s Gate” by Van Gogh Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times Shortly before Van Gogh died he painted “At Eternity’s Gate” in 1890 after doing the same image as a lithograph eight years before. The image is extremely powerful and the meaning can be transformed to mean many things. [...]
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