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Sharing an Umbrella. Japanese Tanzaku woodblock print. Artist unknown. Colour and ink on paper. 2 x 9 and a quarter inches
Private collection Great Britain
This month we focus on a Japanese Tanzaku woodblock print from the Meiji Period (1868-1912). What is a Tanzaku print? A Tanzaku print, or ‘poem slip’ print, is a narrow, vertical woodblock print with a verse already printed on it or, alternatively, a space where a poem can be handwritten. Tanzaku prints typically feature landscapes or nature subjects. This traditional Japanese form of poetic expression dates back centuries, and is still in use today, with Tanazaku prints decorating bamboo branches for the annual Tanabata Festival held in Japan on the seventh day of the seventh month.
This charming little print is waiting for a poem to be written on it. But what can the scene already tell us, and what sort of poem might it suggest to the poet? We have two figures, male and female (the star-crossed Tanabata lovers perhaps?), sharing a (lacquered) paper umbrella; perhaps they are walking out together for an early evening stroll. They are barefoot and not dressed particularly warmly. The rain, and the willow branch above them is in leaf, suggesting a time during the rainy season (the middle of June to the end of July in Japan) which would also coincide with the Tanabata Festival there. The Manji motif on the umbrella is an ancient symbol in Japan, and throughout much of Asia, implying something fortunate, lucky or auspicious. It’s invariably found in Shinto shrines and in some Buddhist temples. Does the umbrella belong to one of those shrines or temples, or perhaps to an inn associated with one of them? The most curious feature in the print are the diagonal lines running from right to left. They suggest a mosquito net, but who would be peering out from a mosquito net at this couple taking an early evening stroll in the rain?
A ‘licking dog’ statue. Part of an extraordinary Roman hoard found this year in Gloucestershire, England. It is thought that the statue might have been used in healing
Image credit Bristol City Council
Current Archaeology reports that –
A Roman hoard dating to c.AD 318-450 and holding several hundred bronze objects has been found in Gloucestershire. Discovered by metal-detectorists in September, its contents included pieces of a large bronze statue, jewellery fragments, and a coin of ‘Crispus globe on altar’ type, dated to AD 321-324 and minted in Trier, Germany. It is thought that many of the objects in the hoard were deliberately broken before they were placed in the ground – perhaps by a local metalworker who was intending to melt and recast them later.
Full article here.
Mackenzie Crook (right) and Toby Jones (left) in their roles as Andy and Lance in the Detectorists
Image credit Chris Harris
Ben Dowell writes in the RadioTimes that –
Detectorists is a gem of a series, a buddy tale of two men who are as far from being ‘lads’ as it is possible to imagine, all set in beautiful English countryside where the sun always seems to shine – or at least peak through the clouds.
Their constant search for treasure below ground has always carried symbolic weight: searching for a purpose in life and, perhaps above all, for love.
So what happens now, when Mackenzie Crook’s metal detecting enthusiast Andy has left with his young family to follow his dreams in Botswana, and Toby Jones’s character Lance has unearthed actual treasure?
Detectorists series three starts on Wednesday, 8 November at 10pm on BBC4. More here
Olga Winsinger-Florien (1844-1926) Austrian painter
Japanese woodblock print by Eiichi Kotozuka 琴塚 英 (1906-1979) of Nene-no-Michi Lane near Yatsusaka, Kyoto on New Year’s Day (circa 1950). The rectangular shop sign reads tabako (tobacco). The round lantern sign could be a shop or Japanese inn sign and reads Sennari
Private collection Great Britain
Eiichi Kotozuka was, “born in Osaka, graduated from the Kyoto Kaiga Semmon Gakko (Technical School of Painting) in 1930. From 1932, he exhibited prints with Shun’yokai (Spring Principle Association), an artist’s organization that exhibited Western-style art. He also exhibited with the government sponsored Teiten. He was a member of Nihon Hanga Kyokai (Japan Print Association) from 1938. In addition to print making, Kotozuka exhibited Japanese-style paintings with the artists’ organization Seiryusha, which he helped found in 1929. He was also a co-founder of Koryokusha in 1948 with fellow artists Tokuriki Tomikichiro (1902-2000), Kamei Tōbei (1901-1977) and Tasaburo Takahashi (1904-1977) which they set up to publish their creative prints (sosaku hanga). After WWII he created a number of designs for the publisher Uchida Publishing, including his most famous series Eight Snow Scenes of Kyoto.” Source The Lavenberg Collection of Japanese Prints.
The same scene today
Source and © Photogenic Japan
Hokusai Cinema Trailer. 4 June 2017
Don’t miss the world première of British Museum presents Hokusai at your local cinema on 4 June 2017. This ground-breaking feature documentary is the first British film to be made about the celebrated Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai.
Co-produced with NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), British Museum presents: Hokusai will be introduced by Andrew Graham-Dixon and feature artists David Hockney, Grayson Perry, Rebecca Salter and Maggi Hambling along with leading scholars of the day.
More here.
International Museum Day 2017
The worldwide community of museums celebrate International Museum Day on and around 18 May 2017 around the theme Museums and contested histories: Saying the unspeakable in museums.
This theme focuses on the role of museums that, by working to benefit society, become hubs for promoting peaceful relationships between people. The acceptance of a contested history is the first step in envisioning a shared future under the banner of reconciliation.
Saying the unspeakable in museums looks at how to understand the incomprehensible aspects of the contested histories inherent to the human race. It also encourages museums to play an active role in peacefully addressing traumatic histories through mediation and multiple points of view.
More here.
Hokusai’s The Great Wave. Woodblock print published between 1829 and 1833
The British Museum’s special exhibition features some of Hokusai’s best-known masterpieces and will explore the work of one of Japan’s greatest artists.
Featuring loans from across the world, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see these works together. Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) is widely regarded as one of Japan’s most famous and influential artists. He produced works of astonishing quality right up until his death at the age of 90.
This new exhibition will lead you on an artistic journey through the last 30 years of Hokusai’s life – a time when he produced some of his most memorable masterpieces.
Hokusai: beyond the Great Wave
25 May – 13 August (closed 3–6 July).
Book now here.
Supported by Mitsubishi Corporation.
Marking World Heritage Day today we are focusing on the ancient Japanese art of picture conservation and mounting known as Hyōgu.
1923 woodblock print after the earliest known image of a hyōgushi priest and his assistant Original by the 14th century Japanese painter Fujiwara Takakane
Private collection Great Britain
Hyōgu and the hyōgushi
The art of restoring and mounting works of art on paper and silk has been practiced in the Far East for nearly two millennia. Originating first in China at the beginning of the Christian era, conservation techniques and materials then spread to Japan where they developed into the refined art that we now know as Hyōgu.
The word Hyōgu means a picture or piece of calligraphy lined with paper and mounted as a hanging scroll. The words hyōgushi, hyōguya and kyōji refer to the mounter/conservators of Japan who not only repair and mount hanging scrolls but also conserve other forms of pictorial art such as the handscroll, screens, sliding doors, murals etc.
The hyōgushi of today is required to undergo a long and strict period of training. During this time he or she learns not only the skills which will enable him to conserve scrolls, screens etc, but also the knowledge and sensitivity required to present them in their correct context. He must know the appropriate style of mount used for any subject and be aware, for example, of the meanings associated with the patterned silks used with such mounts. He or she must also know how and where an object will be used as this will often dictate the materials and techniques employed in its conservation.
Like the Western bookbinder, the hyōgushi is responsible for objects which must be both functional and aesthetically pleasing. The objects he is conserving are made to be opened and closed, rolled and unrolled and, apart from the demands of conservation and aesthetics, the hyōgushi must always bear in mind that they are to be constantly handled and not merely viewed.
St Andrew’s Church, Normanby, North Yorkshire, England
The Heritage Trust is fortunate to have its HQ in a little village in North Yorkshire, England that boasts a thriving pub and a pretty little Norman church. This morning we saw an elderly gentleman take some faltering steps towards the church. He’s a frequent visitor to the village and makes a daily pilgrimage to the church when no-one else is there. He went there this morning before the Easter Service. Why does he go alone you may ask. It’s because the church here is Church of England and he is a Roman Catholic. But he does go, daily when visiting, unlike the majority of those in the village and surrounding area. As the church bells rang out this morning, calling its ever dwindling congregation to attend, the words of Simon Jenkins came to mind; “ I don’t go to church, but I do go to churches.”
There are some 16,000 churches in England, many of them architectural gems and places of sanctity and peace. The majority however are poorly attended. The church here has two services a month, with a regular congregation of a dozen or so (most in their seventies and eighties). The rest of the time, other than the occasional wedding, funereal or coffee morning) the church stands open but unused. So what is to be done? Simon Jenkins, in his Guardian article here writes –
England’s biggest, most plentiful, most beautiful buildings are its churches. They are also its emptiest. There are some 16,000 churches in total, and every now and then their owner and janitor, the Church of England, utters a howl of pain. This month a church report points out that more than a quarter of churches have fewer than 20 worshippers on a Sunday – fewer than 10 in rural areas. Help, it cries, opening its mind (at last) to a future for local churches as everything from farmers’ markets to digital hubs, and even to naves as “champing” sites.
Every few years the church gets itself into a mess over how to use its churches. Like millions of people, I don’t go to church, but I do go to churches – 85% of the public visits a church every year. We regard them as the community’s ritual forum, its museum, its art gallery, its concert hall, its occasional retreat for peace, consolation and meditation. Many in the church view us as freeloaders (though I always leave money) and cannot see why they should give us such delight when their proper business is prayer, not heritage custody.
As long as parish churches are seen as shrines belonging to a tiny minority of the community, any hope of wider commitment is pie in the sky. Struggling local churches must be secularised, desanctified. They must be vested in an endowed local trust or parish council that literally owns them, so they become community assets, for whose upkeep local rates can be levied, as with public parks and gardens. There will be many spills along the way. But these buildings cannot be demolished or nationalised. There is simply no alternative.
In a nutshell then, our lovely little parish churches must embrace the wider community. They should become places of worship or meditation for people of all faiths as well as for those of none. Places where concerts are performed, exhibitions held, talks on all matters delivered. Most of all they should be places where all are made welcome and do not feel it necessary, like our elderly gentleman above, to feel excluded.
Happy Easter to all our readers.
Detail of the 450 year-old Thomas Tallis’s motet Gaude gloriosa manuscript
Oxford Corpus Christi College MS 566. Image credit DIAMM.ac.uk
Writing for the Rhinegold Group, News Editor Katy Wright, reports on this evening’s performance of Thomas Tallis’s motet Gaude gloriosa. The manuscript on which the motet is written was found behind plasterwork in the walls of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, England in 1978. This evening’s performance will be the first time it has been heard for 450 years. What makes it even more interesting is that although the music is by Thomas Tallis the text is thought to be by Henry VIII’s sixth and last queen, Katherine Parr.
Alamire is to perform a work by Thomas Tallis which has not been heard for over 450 years as part of its concert at St John’s Smith Square on 14 April. The words are from Parr’s psalm paraphrase ‘Against Enemies’ in her first publication Psalms or Prayers, published in London in 1544, and were set as a contrafact of Tallis’s Gaude gloriosa Dei mater.
[Conductor David Skinner…] discovered that See, Lord, and behold (Parr’s text, set to music by Tallis) and the composer’s five-part Litany (using text by Thomas Cranmer, which was the first departure from the Roman rite in Henry’s reign) were first performed following an elaborately orchestrated series of events at St Paul’s Cathedral, London, which culminated on 23 May 1544 with a procession and sermon.
More here.
University of Birmingham
Entrepreneurship in Cultural Heritage Workshop
Organised by the Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage, University of Birmingham. In association with the West Midlands Museum Development.
Location: The Old Ikon Gallery, Fazeley Studios, Birmingham, B5 5SE England.
2 February 2017.
Over recent years the heritage sector has been hit by cumulative cut-backs in public sector funding, reductions in visitor spend and increasing competition for visitors. At the same time, a multitude of new opportunities continue to emerge relating to technological innovation, new audiences and communication networks and new management approaches. In the context of this developing landscape for the heritage sector, this workshop explores the increasing need for museums and heritage organisations to become ever more entrepreneurial in their approach in order to increase their resilience to the changing environment and also to identify ways and means to build profile, audiences, income and opportunities to communicate the heritage at their heart.
Through presentations by speakers who, in different ways, are involved with innovative approaches to the heritage and museums sector and through discussion, this workshop aims to identify some of the more entrepreneurial management practices of the heritage sector and to explore challenges and opportunities for future entrepreneurial actions.
Key Themes:
· Working towards resilience
· Partner working outside of the heritage sector
· The role of the creative industries
· Going global
· Building audiences and income
Confirmed speakers include:
* Dr Chris Ferguson (Auckland Castle)
* Traci Dix-Williams (Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust)
* Colin Chester-Head of Buying, The National Gallery
* Tony Trehy (Director, Bury Art Museum)
* Harvey Edgington (National Trust)
* Elliot Goodger- Birmingham Museums Trust Enterprise Committee
Pre-booking is essential.
To book your place go here.
Early-bird rate of £45 ( by 13 Jan 2017).
Full delegate rate of £55 (by 27 January 2017).
Contact: Jamie Davies, Teaching Fellow in Cultural Heritage
j.g.davies@bham.ac.uk mailto:j.g.davies@bham.ac.uk
0121 414 5616
Staff and volunteers from Accredited Museums or those officially Working towards Accreditation should reserve their place via the events page of the West Midlands Museum Development website: mdwm.org.uk or contact wmmd@ironbridge.org.uk mailto:wmmd@ironbridge.org.uk
We received the following (edited for clarity) last week from Dr. Mustafa Elhawat, Head of the Department of Classical Archaeology, University of Elmergheb, Al-khums in Libya. If any of our readers can assist Dr. Mustafa Elhawat please contact him at the email address below.
Dear The Heritage Trust
The political situation and the war in Libya has several complications. The problem lies in the risk to archaeological sites and buildings by militant Islamists, and exploration of these sites by thieves and vandals. There is also the illegal trade in stolen artefacts from some sites and cemeteries which are then sold on the internet and smuggled out of the country. Also, there are numerous monuments in Libya that need to be archived as they are not registered at present. There are two sections in Libya – East and West – but staff there are inexperienced and are in need of training.
We are doing as much as possible and are campaigning to raise awareness among the Libyan population. We are also setting up workshops and seminars but we need to acquire more skills, set up courses etc because archaeological sites in Libya are currently in crisis and at severe risk.
Cultural heritage in Libya belongs to all of humanity and the duty of everyone is to protect and preserve it. So we extend our hands to you, in the international community, to work with us together in order to preserve these treasures and this heritage. I hope there will be close cooperation between us all which will provide an appropriate solution to this crisis.
Cordial greetings
Dr. Mustafa Elhawat
Head of the Department of Classical Archaeology. Faculty of Archaeology and Tourism. (Near Leptis Magna). University of Elmergheb, Al-khums. Libya. Member of the Commission for the Conservation of Libyan Cultural Heritage. email archeologo@live.com
The Egyptian Sekhemka statue (2400 – 2300bce)
Image credit Mike Pitts
BBC News reports 15 October that –
A statue at the centre of an international heritage row is thought to have been exported to the USA. The Sekhemka figurine was sold by Northampton Borough Council for nearly £16m in 2014.
Auctioneers Christies had refused to state where it was going and there were rumours it may have ended up in a private collection in Qatar. However, it has emerged the Department for Culture, Media and Sport granted an export licence to the US in April. It had initially imposed an export ban – due to the statue’s cultural significance and “outstanding aesthetic importance” – but this was lifted after no UK buyer came forward.
The sale of the 4,000-year-old statue, believed to be of a high court official, had been opposed by Egypt’s antiquities ministry. Last week BBC News revealed how the council, which made £8m from the sale, had been warned by lawyers not to sell it for “financial motives”. The council said it sold the figurine to help fund a £14m extension to its museum and art gallery.
The Heritage Trust strongly opposed the sale and export of the Sekhemka statue (see our various features by typing Sekhemka in the search box above) and is dismayed by the news that it will leave Britain. There is no information yet on whether the statue will fall into private hands or go into a museum. What is certain is that the people of Northampton, and further afield, will no longer be able to see this stunning statue from ancient Egypt in their Museum.
BBC News article here.
The Taisho Photographer’s House by Hamish Campbell
Hidden in an old and collapsing home, an incredible discovery sheds light on the lives of a Japanese family during Japan’s Taishō Period (1912–1926). As this remarkable family home, and its contents, slowly disintegrates and disappears Australian photographer Hamish Campbell captures what still remains.
The Heritage Trust strongly urges the appropriate Japanese authorities to take steps to protect and preserve this unique and invaluable house and its contents for future generations.
Nexus – Genkan I
A superimposed image showing the condition of the Taisho Photographer’s House today, with a Taisho family bride entering the house’s genkan (hallway)
Image credit Hamish Campbell
The Heritage Trust 