As you may have guessed from the missing posts, I’ve been busy the last week, and things will stay this way for a while. This year the pace is picking up, I am receiving more and more invitations to press previews for upcoming exhibitions.
Last Friday was the preview for “The Legend of Sesshu”, a 15th century Japanese painter whose style has influenced many other painters through the Edo period and beyond. One of his paintings of Mt. Fuji was so groundbreaking that it served as a model after which many other painters created their own views of Fuji. No fewer than six of his paintings are National Treasures, more than of any other painter in Japan – and they are all in Kyoto right now for the exhibition at the Kyoto National Museum.
My personal favourite of the entire exhibition was this ink painting titled “Winter Landscape” from 1470. It’s hard to describe what I feel when I see it, and while I’m not a painter myself, I do understand on a very visceral level that it’s a masterpiece.
As I said, things are picking up; tomorrow I will go to a preview for Bijinga (paintings of beautiful women) and next week there will be Japanese combs and hair ornaments. I love my job!