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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.
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.
Twilight at Stonehenge (circa 1840). Watercolour by William Turner of Oxford
Image credit Wikimedia Commons
Early Man
Nick Park and Peter Lord, British animators best known as the creators of Wallace and Gromit, have announced that their latest movie Early Man is in production! “Dug and Hognob wanted to do something to celebrate – they’ve kept it short and snappy!” Early Man is arriving in cinemas next year.
Screengrab from the Early Man website
More here, and please see our earlier features in our Animations, cartoons and graphic novels category.
Image courtesy of Musée National de Préhistoire collections. Photo MNP/Ph. Jugie
This 38,000 year-old engraving of an aurochs, recently discovered by anthropologists in south-western France, is among the earliest known engravings found in Western Eurasia. Read more about the discovery here.
Stonehenge in Winter by Walter Williams (1834-1906)
Season’s Greetings to all our Readers
Nine Stones Altarnun at Dawn
Image credit and © Roy Goutté
An artist’s impression of Londinium, centre of the Roman Empire in Britain, circa 200ce
Across the river to the south of Londinium was a small suburb that would later become Southwark. It was here, in a Roman cemetery, that two skeletons dating from between the 2-4 centuries ce, and of East Asian origin (possibly Chinese), have been found.
It is not yet know if the two individuals were slaves, traders or something else. Trade between China and Rome was already well established through intermediaries by this time; in fact there is an example of Roman jewellery being found in a 5th century Japanese tomb.
More here. See also our earlier feature Caesaromagus: A place of unassuming mystery…
Replica of the early 8th century Anglo-Saxon Franks Casket by sculptor Andrew Lilley
©
Trustees of the British Museum
The British Museum has commissioned two replicas of the early 8th century Anglo-Saxon Franks Casket by sculptor Andrew Lilley. “One option presents the casket in similar colours to the whalebone we see today, while the other has been hand painted in colours that represent how experts believe it may have looked when made.”
The original is on display at the British Museum. The right-hand side of the casket is a replica; the original is in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, Italy.
More on the Franks Casket 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
Illustration from the frontispiece to Days in Cornwall (Methuen & Co)
To A Fallen Cromlech
And Thou at last art fall’n; Thou, who hast seen
The storms and calms of twice ten hundred years.
The naked Briton here has paused to gaze
Upon thy pond’rous mass, ere bells were chimed,
Or the throng’d hamlet smok’d with social fires.
Whilst thou hast here repos’d, what numerous
tribes,
That breath’d the breath of life, have pass’d away.
What wond’rous changes in th’affairs of men!
Their proudest cities lowly ruins made;
Battles, and sieges, empires lost and won;
Whilst thou hast stood upon the silent hill
A lonely monument of times that were.
Lie, where thou art. Let no rude hand remove,
Or spoil thee; for the spot is consecrate
To thee, and Thou to it; and as the heart
Aching with thoughts of human littleness
Asks, without hope of knowing, whose the strength
That poised thee here; so ages yet unborn
(O! humbling, humbling thought !)may vainly seek,
What were the race of men, that saw thee fall.
Poetry would normally be considered out of place in this Journal, but the lines printed above seem worthy of record here. Their author was the Rev. Charles Valentine Le Grice (1773-1858), who lived at Trereife, Madron, and was curate of St. Mary’s Chapel, Penzance, from 1806 to 1831. He was a prolific writer and lists of his many published works may be found in Bibliotheca Comubiensis (/, 311; ///, 1266). The poem was written in 1816 and printed in the Appendix to the second (1823) edition of The Petition of an Old Uninhabited House in Penzance (p.37). Lanyon Quoit, Madron, “perhaps the noblest specimen of the kind”; the date of the fall is given by Le Grice as 19th October 1816, but this is evidently a mistake for 1815. For a drawing and account of the quoit in its fallen state see Proc. W.C.F.C. 1.4 (1956), 167; it was later re-erected at less than the original height.
From Cornish Archaeology: No 5, 1996. Page 16. For another poem on Lanyon Quoit click here.
Re-creating classic paintings in 3D that may be touched, and now made freely available worldwide. The Unseen Art project – a new way to experience art with touch, for the blind and for everyone
Have you ever been touched by art? Have you had an emotional reaction while viewing a painting, have you gotten a different point of view, or learned something about the world or yourself? Have you ever touched the work of a great artist? Have you ever wanted to get up close and personal, and experience the art with your own hands?
You can experience art in a new way, and open art to others for the first time. There are many people in the world who have heard of classical artworks their whole lives but are unable to see them. The project is involving people from all over the world to recreate classical art We are creating a new opportunity for people in the world to experience art. The project is involving people from all over the world to recreate classical art paintings in 3D so that they may be touched and felt, both in exhibitions and in people’s homes. 3D models of the paintings are free and printable anywhere in the world where there’s access to a 3D printer.
More on the The Unseen Art project here.
Video impression of how Stonehenge and its surrounding landscape would look without traffic
Alex Rennie, for the Salisbury Journal, reports on a film that’s been released by three public bodies which are promoting a tunnel for Stonehenge –
A YEAR after the Government announced plans to build a 2.9km tunnel under Stonehenge three public bodies have released a film promoting the benefits of burying the A303. Historic England, the National Trust and English Heritage hope that construction of the tunnel will improve wildlife and nature at the World Heritage Site.
Ian Wilson, Assistant Director of Operations for the National Trust in Dorset and Wiltshire, said: “We really hope the film brings to life the very real benefits that a tunnel could bring to the Stonehenge Landscape, for people and for wildlife.”
More here.
