Exhibition Information
Posted: 04/13/2015
Posted by: Jeannie Kenmotsu
A Sense of Place: Modern Japanese Prints
Jeannie Kenmotsu, Quintana Heathman, Julie Nelson Davis.
Arthur Ross Gallery,
Philadelphia,
PA, United States.
04/10/2015 -
06/21/2015.
Exhibiting artist(s): Munakata Shikō, Sekino Jun’ichirō, Yoshida Hiroshi, Maekawa Senpan, Tanaka Ryōhei, Saitō Kiyoshi, Azechi Umetaro, Ono Tadashige.
The subject of “famous places” was one of the most influential topics in the development of landscape imagery in Japan and was initially linked to courtly poetry practices that named and praised significant sites. By the later eighteenth century, savvy commercial publishers adapted the theme to create a new set of famous locales in the city of Edo and more distant must-see destinations. Later, modern print artists referenced the landscape tradition established in ukiyo-e prints when they selected famous sites for their own work, some reflecting the changes of the twentieth century, some promoting sites of national importance, and still others reimagining what constituted “landscape” and the “famous place” in Japan as well as in the world beyond. This exhibition brings together twentieth-century prints on this theme, with works selected from the holdings of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the University of Pennsylvania Library, and private collections.
Relevant research areas: East Asia, 19th Century, 20th Century, Contemporary, Etching, Relief printing