Sunday, March 1, 2015

Asian Art Museum, Seduction: Japan's Floating World II

These are from the Second Room of the Seduction portion of the Exhibit. And this first image you see, Utagawa Kuniyoshi's Hell Courtesan is the most astonishing, captivating, and amazing pieces of artwork I've seen in over a decade. I'm assuming there's better photographs and reproductions of it elsewhere, including in the official catalogues of the show, which the AAM Museum Store was doing pre-orders for. According to wikipedia, "Utagawa Kuniyoshi was one of the last great masters of the Japanese ukiyo-e style of woodblock prints and painting." Is there any doubt that's true?

I thought I'd do a shot where one could see the effect of the light on the textiles (I believe this is silk).




I have no words that suffice. The mastery, beauty, grace, elegance, and utter other-worldliness of this work takes my breath away. 



No comments:

Post a Comment