Mount Fuji Rising above Clouds (detail), about 1913 (Taishō 2). Yokoyama Taikan (1868–1958). Pair of six-fold screens, color on gold-leafed silk; 187.2 × 416.3 cm (each screen). Tokyo National Museum, A-10533
The crucible of modern Japanese history stimulated creative approaches to depicting the human body. Japanese visual culture underwent extraordinary changes in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries due to new media such as oil painting and photography; new audiences including foreigners at world’s fairs; and new spectacles such as train travel and the modern military. Focusing on works in the exhibition Remaking Tradition: Modern Art of Japan, Dr. Bert Winther-Tamaki, Chair of Art History and Professor of Visual Culture at the University of California, Irvine, examines modern transformations of traditional figures in Japanese art, including venerable spiritual teachers, formidable warriors, and kimono-clad beauties.
Free.