West Meets East in Japanese Prints (earlier than expected) by toshidama Most people tend to think of Japan as being sealed from the rest of the world until Commander Perry’s famous gunboat diplomacy of 1854. This is true in the main but there are notable examples of Dutch fraternisation prior to the reforms that led to [...]
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 [...]
Death of Kuniyoshi By toshidama Something not much commemorated this year is the 150th anniversary of the death of Utagawa Kuniyoshi. Kuniyoshi was one of Japan’s greatest artists and his legacy of rich designs cannot be underestimated. The inventiveness of his best prints is astonishing; he is surely to be remembered for his synthesis of [...]
WHY JAPANESE PRINTS? By toshidama Some people say, ‘why Japanese prints?’… or, ‘it’s a bit niche isn’t it?’ Well, yes and no. The market for Japanese prints is large. Pensive Love, 1790, by Utamaro fetched €313,00 at auction in 2002. A fine Hiroshige can sell for up to $30,000 at the moment. There are major sales [...]
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 [...]
Kunichika & Warhol – Seeing Stars By toshidama The superstar is no new phenomenon nor is the intimate relationship between entertainer and publicist a product only of modern mass media. I’m interested here in Kunichika and his close relationship with two very famous kabuki actors of the late nineteenth century; and how similar that [...]
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 [...]
Kunichika at The Toshidama Gallery By toshidama “‘A gorgeous view, a gorgeous view, even a thousand pieces of gold is too little to pay for spring’s splendid scenery.” So remarked Ishikawa Goemon, looking out from on top of Nanzen-ji temple’s Sanmon Gate. How wonderful that Toyohara Kunchika decided to paint this great thief! Whether it’s Yukihime, [...]
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, [...]
Women and the Floating World By toshidama I guess it is to be both anticipated and regretted that the women of Japan who were once the great writers and poets and priestesses, not to say robbers and warriors of their culture, should have been reduced by the middle of the nineteenth century to the status of [...]
| Today | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
 Thunderstorm 70° | 54° |  Clear 75° | 61° |  Partly Cloudy 75° | 61° |
Japanese Yen Exchange Rate