Painting Edo

As we contemplate the world from our distant positions, one can recall the long period of distance that Japan experienced during the Edo period from around 1600 to 1868. In the New York Review of Books (NYRB) recently, there was a review of an excellent exhibition of Japanese Art from the Edo period which is currently ‘on display’ at the Harvard Art Museum. As the museum is shuttered and can’t be visited, there are some impressive online options.

For those interested in how art and culture survived and thrived in isolation this is a fascinating exhibition to explore.

The writer for the NYRB, Tamar Avishai (creator and host of ‘The Lonely Palette’ podcast), makes the point that the exhibition, ‘Painting Edo’ is ‘perhaps arguably experiencing its most historically authentic moment in the strangeness of ours. Because to fully understand the significance of the Edo Period in Japan is to place yourself in a country that flourished even as it was closed off to the rest of the world. Japan was famously isolated during this period, save for some Dutch trade, and the most enduring legacy of this seclusion is a diverse and elegant body of art that evolved as a result of this fervid inward gaze’.

Her review provides an overview of the more than one hundred and twenty objects in the exhibition (covering the multiple painting schools of the period) which range from the ‘deliberately amateur style of the Literati School, to the sumptuous golds of the patronized Kano School’. The artworks come from the Feinberg Collection which is a substantial and comprehensive collection of decorative scrolls, folding screens, fans, woodblock printed books, and other works, promised to the university. The full review can be found at: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/05/09/art-in-isolation-the-delicate-paintings-of-edo-japan/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR%20Branding%20the%20Democrats&utm_content=NYR%20Branding%20the%20Democrats+CID_5f281a9a556b72878e9e054d58d5f6c0&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=Japans%20early%20modern%20era

The Harvard Gazette also has a review of the exhibition which can be read at: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/painting-edo-offers-window-into-rich-era-of-japanese-art/

The website for the Harvard Art Museum provides links to information about the exhibition: https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/exhibitions/5909/painting-edo-japanese-art-from-the-feinberg-collection

Alternatively the videos can be accessed at: https://vimeo.com/channels/1537378

The videos on vimeo include: ‘Painting Edo – An Introduction’ ( 3mins 23 secs); an ‘Art Talk with curator, Rachel Saunders’ (10min 22secs); ‘The Transcendence of Laughter’ which looks at Zen paintings (15mins 50 secs); a behind the scenes walk-through of the exhibition (13mins 54 secs); and a lecture ‘Into the Kaleidoscope: Painting in Edo Japan’ by Timon Screech, Professor of the History of Art, University of London (one hour, 19 and ½ minutes).

The NGV has an extensive collection of art and artifacts from the Edo period which can be explored online. I will conclude with two woodblock prints from Kitagawa Utamaro c.1815. These works are from his ‘Yoshiwara around the clock series’. Yoshiwara was a famous red-light district in Edo (present-day Tokyo) and Utamaro made of number of prints depicting the lives of geishas in the district. The hours refer to the zodiac clock: the ‘hour of the rat’ is from 11pm to 1am and the ‘hour of the dragon’ is from 7am to 9am. I wonder what Utamaro is telling us about how geisha’s days were structured?

Enjoy another world in another age….

NB. The image in the blog index is: People join together to form another person, (c. 1847) by Utagawa Kuniyoshi – NGV Collection