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Material for Art Research, Comments on Little Known Paintings: A Brief Introduction to Works in the Portland Art Museum (II)
Get PDF6. Kanô Shunko, Karako (Chinese Children) at Play Pair of two-panel screens, color on paper, Each screen H. 50.0 cm, W. 171.6 cm
This pair of half-height, two-panel folding screens depicts so-called karako (Chinese children) at play. The right screen shows the children playing various musical instruments, along with auspicious painting themes such as the shôchikubai (pine-bamboo-plum) combination and crane and tortoise combination, all alongside karako playing with pull-carts. The left screen shows other karako playing hide and seek, the peony and peacock as symbols of wealth and power, and other children painting ink paintings. Images of karako were one of the popular themes painted on wall and panel paintings of 17th century Buddhist nunneries and women’s buildings in the imperial and shogunal palaces. They came to symbolize the world of women’s palace culture. This painting can be considered one of Kanô Shunko’s masterpieces, with the addition of the traditional gentlemanly pursuits theme of kinki shoga (zither playing, chess, painting and calligraphy) set against a background of traditional Kanô school landscape scenery and gold mist and clouds scattered across its entire surface.
7. Deer in an Autumn Field, Pair of six-panel screens, color on paper, Each screen, H. 148.5 cm, W. 341.6 cm
Deer are seen against a space filled with autumn grasses on this pair of six-panel screens. The right screen depicts, from the right, morning glories, patrinia, Japanese pampas grass, bushclover and ivy, with a stag standing with his back to the viewer in the third panel. The left screen, from the right, depicts hydrangeas, bellflowers, Japanese pampas grass, wild chrysanthemums, morning glories, bushclover, hibiscus, chrysanthemums and other plants, with a pair of deer seated in a dense thicket of bushclover on the fourth panel. The deer/bushclover combination was an animal-plant pairing signaling autumn in waka poetry since antiquity. Numerous paintings and decorative artworks were created which incorporated that poetic sentiment. This work is characterized by its separate use of different techniques to depict the autumn grasses, from ink painting to mineral pigments and organic dyestuff, and its rendering of simple but elegant expanse of an autumn field through careful use of a gentle color palette and adroit placement of tonal variation. Both screens are impressed with the “I’nen” seal used by the Sôtatsu school.
8. Maruyama Ôkyo, Carp, Crucian Carp and Turtle, Twopanel screen, color on silk, H. 57.8 cm, W. 171.6 cm
This small, furosaki byôbu (folding screen) depicts a crucian carp, two carp and two turtles. The carp is a frequently seen traditional painting theme, and Ôkyo’s own hanging scroll images of the theme are well known. This work presents the auspicious themes of carp and turtle, combined with a single crucian carp, all presenting a cooling waterside scene. Overall the composition is painted in pale ink, blue pigment and gold paint, while a humorous touch is added to the composition through the meeting of the gazes of the carp on the far right and the turtle on the far left. While Ôkyo based this painting on sketches from life, he also fully employed creative touches as he was strongly aware of how this painting would be viewed as an artwork.
9. Suzuki Kiitsu, Flowering Plants, Two framed panels, Color on gold ground on paper, Each H. 24.4 cm, W. 79.0 cm
Kiitsupaintedbracken, violets, horsetails , chrysanthemums, Japanese pampas grass, nurude (Chinese sumac) and spearflowers on gold ground-covered paper on four small sliding door panels. Today those panels have been mounted into two framed panels, with each framed panel consisting of two of the sliding door panels surrounded by a lacquered wooden frame. The hand pull fittings are incised with bushclover and fujibakama (Eupatorium fortunei), plant types not included in the painted images, and it is thought that the hand pulls have accompanied the paintings from their inception. These works were commissioned for use as small sliding door panels in the upper section of a chigaidana (built-in staggered shelves) arrangement in a shoin-zukuri type room. The painting style and signature and seals indicate that Kiitsu created these autumn grasses paintings during his mature period in his later years.
10. Utagawa Toyoharu, Beauty, Hanging scroll, color on silk, Inscription, H. 32.3 cm, Painting H. 31.6 cm, W. 46.3 cm
This hanging scroll presents a painting of a beauty by Utagawa Toyoharu, topped with an inscription by Santô Kyôden. Given that the ground silk pieces used for the inscription and the painting are of different qualities, it is not certain that the two works were originally paired. The inscription has Santô Kyôden’s signature and seals. The date at the end of the inscription corresponds to 1793 (Kansei 5). Toyoharu is known as the founder of the Utagawa school of ukiyo-e artists. He almost exclusively produced paintings, rather than prints, during the latter half of his life. Many of his paintings of beauties are known today. Judging from the woman’s hairstyle and the painting style, this painting is thought to date from the Kansei era (1789–1801). While this accords with the date of the Kyôden inscription, that text includes playful comments about the pleasure quarters, mention of seasonal scenery and Chinese-style poetry, and thus it cannot be said to match this painting.
at the end of the inscription corresponds to 1793 (Kansei 5). Toyoharu is known as the founder of the Utagawa school of ukiyo-e artists. He almost exclusively produced paintings, rather than prints, during the latter half of his life. Many of his paintings of beauties are known today. Judging from the woman’s hairstyle and the painting style, this painting is thought to date from the Kansei era (1789–1801). While this accords with the date of the Kyôden inscription, that text includes playful comments about the pleasure quarters, mention of seasonal scenery and Chinese-style poetry, and thus it cannot be said to match this painting.journal articl
Summary of the Microbial Surveys of the Kitora Tumulus from 2004 to 2013
Get PDFIn January 2004,excavation of the Kitora Tumulus took place and the relocation of the paintings started. In 2013, the relocation works were completed and the stone chamber of the Kitora Tumlus was buried again.
In this report,the results of our surveys of microorganisms detected using cultivation/culture-dependent methods during the period from 2004 to 2013 are summarized,and details of the results of our recent surveys of the stone chamber interior in September 2012 and of the southern stone part of the Tumulus in February 2013 are provided.
Soon after people began to go into the stone chamber in 2004,fungal appearances were visible to the naked eye on the wall plaster and murals. In the beginning, fungi such as Trichoderma sp., Penicillium sp., and Fusarium sp. appeared as the major contaminants inside the stone chamber.Ethanol was mainly used to kill and remove such fungal colonies, as it was thought to be one of the mildest of fungicides to the pigments of the murals. In early 2005, small colonies of viscous gels appeared on some parts of the walls. In the summer of 2005,the viscous gels suddenly developed to form biofilms on the plaster walls. In the fall of 2005, small holes (ca. 10mm diam) with black substances inside became obvious on the plaster walls. Such holes might have been caused by the activity of microbes, especially by an acetic acid bacterium,Gluconacetobacter sp. (later identified as G. tumulicola),which had been isolated from one of the black substances from a hole in the ceiling.Dark colored fungi,such as the basidiomycetous fungus Burgoa sp.(later identified as B. anomala) characterized by bulbils and the anamorphic fungi Acremonium (sect. Gliomastix) spp. characterized by darkly pigmented ameroconidia, were also detected inside the stone chamber.
In 2008, almost all of the paintings on the side walls and the star charts on the ceiling were relocated. By our survey in 2008, species of the fungal genera Penicillium, Clonostachys, Cladosporium, Phialophora, Ophiostoma, Cylindrocarpon, Phialocephala and Trichoderma were isolated from the samples collected from the stone chamber interior.
As some chemicals can be a nutrient source for growth of some microbes, measures such as intermittent UV irradiation were applied from March 2009 to 2013 in order to control microorganisms in the stone chamber interior.Growth of most fungal mycelia was suppressed effectively. However, dark/dematiaceous fungal species of genera such as Acremonium (sect. Gliomastix), Phialophora, Cladophialophora, Arthrinum, and Exophiala were often detected as predominant species. This suggests that those dark fungal species might have been dominant as relatively tolerant species to UV irradiation though significant visible damage by such species was not observed. On the other hand, dark colored fungi, such as Phialophora, Cladophialophora, and Exophiala, were also isolated from the surface of the southern stone of the Tumulus where UV irradiation was not applied. Therefore, direct relationship between UV irradiation and detection of such species is not clear at present. Since Phialophora, Cladophialophora, and Exophiala were often isolated from stone surfaces,they may be considered as fungi that grow on stones.As some of these genera are known to be human pathogens,appropriate precautions are necessary to handle such biofilms in the tumulus environment.journal articl
Required Period of Low Oxygen Treatment at 25℃, 27.5℃ and 30℃ for the Low Oxygen Treatment of Cultural Objects:A Case Study with Sitophilus zeamais as a Tolerant Species
Get PDFThe efficacy of low oxygen treatment depends on temperature and relative humidity. Several reports have shown that higher temperature and lower relative humidity usually decrease exposure period of low oxygen treatment for complete insect mortality. For example, at 30℃, it was reported that 3 weeks was sufficient for complete mortality of common museum insects by low oxygen treatment. However, sometimes it is considered difficult to maintain higher temperature such as 30℃,and too low relative humidity cannot be applied to museum objects.Also at 20℃,10 weeks was required for complete mortality in previous experiments. But in some cases, shorter periods are preferred for such treatments. Therefore, treatment periods of 25℃, 27.5℃ and 30℃ were studied while maintaining the relative humidity at approximately 50%RH.
In the present study, rice grains containing eggs, larvae and pupae of Sitophilus zeamais, one of the most tolerant insect species for low oxygen atmosphere, were used. Low oxygen atmosphere was attained with RP-20K oxygen absorber. Temperature was
maintained at 25℃, 27.5℃ and 30℃ respectively, and relative humidity was maintained at approximately 50%RH. After treatments, numbers of adult emergence were counted.
As a result, 4-week treatment at 27.5℃ was required to achieve 100% mortality while 5-week treatment at 25℃ was required to achieve 100% mortality.These data suggest that a treatment of at least 4 weeks at 27.5℃ or 5 weeks at 25℃ are recommended to treat insect species which are tolerant to low oxygen atmosphere.journal articl
Archives and the Avant-Garde: Ephemerality of Expression and the Totality of Archive Materials
Get PDFA mini-symposium titled “Aspects of Art Archives” was held on February 25, 2014 in the Seminar Room of the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo (NRICPT). In exhibitions examining post-World War II Japanese art held in Japan, there is often a display of archival materials, such as sketchbooks, letters, record photographs and video footage to assist with an understanding of the intentions of the artists in their creative process. Particularly in the case of artists and groups whose art form is performance or other actions, it would not be excessive to state that such archives are the only means by which we can verify the intentions of that expression. In recent years there has been a growing interest in postwar Japanese art in North America, and quite frequently overseas museums have begun to assemble archives of material on those artists deemed important in this period. The mini-symposium’s intention was both to look back on how Japan’s cultural properties research institutes, art museums and archival organizations handle archives of postwar Japanese art, and to also consider our desires regarding how such art archives should develop in the future.
Thus the theme of this mini-symposium was set as art archives in terms of contemporary art. The first section included individual presentations by the art historian Kajiya Kenji (then Associate Professor, Hiroshima City University, now Associate Professor, Kyoto City University of Arts), the archivist Uesaki Sen (Researcher, Keio University Art Center) and librarian Kikkawa Hideki (Associate Fellow, NRICPT). In their lectures they introduced the contemporary art archives in both America and Japan as seen from their various vantage points, and also gave keynote address-type elements such as the composition and methodologies of art archives. The second section consisted of a discussion among the speakers and symposium participants, based on those lectures and considering both the current state of art archives and our hopes for them in the future.
The lecture by Kajiya, an art historian specializing in American art history, was titled, “Art History in Art Archives.” Kajiya touched on the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum Archives of MOMA, New York, and the Special Collections of the Getty Research Institute, as he considered the function of archive materials in the study of contemporary American art. In addition, he also touched on the activities of the Oral History Archives of Japanese Art for which he is the director, noting what is desirable in the art archives essential for the study of postwar Japanese art, from the dual viewpoints of archive operator and user.
Uesaki’s talk was titled, “Archives and the Avant-Garde: Ephemerality of Expression and the Totality of Archive Materials,” and used the Sogetsu Art Center’s ephemera database as a model approach for avant-garde art archives. In this lecture he indicated that the archives of the group of materials known as ephemera do not contain the artworks themselves, but rather are the archives of all the miscellaneous materials closely related to the artworks. He further considered the process by which databases related to avant-garde art are planned and constructed, the meaning of organizing the different types of materials, the aims for archiving, and the philosophies inherent in archives themselves.
Kikkawa’s lecture was titled, “Records and Materials in the Notes Made by the Artist Nakamura Hiroshi: Focusing on the Sightseeing Art Research Institute and the Tokyo Art Pillar Exhibition.” The lecture introduced Nakamura’s production notebooks in the NRICPT collection. In these notebooks Nakamura recorded theactivities of the Avant-Garde Art Society of the latter half of the 1960s. These notebooks include materials regarding the operations of the Avant-Garde Art Society, such as meeting minutes, submission rules for exhibitions, photographs of display scenes and other materials. Kikkawa focused on the materials related to the Sightseeing Art Research Institute and the Tokyo Art Pillar exhibition, noting the meaning of such materials as research sources.
This Research Note is a summary of the individual papers from Session 1 of the symposium, as summarized by the speakers themselves. In addition, it reproduces the discussion held between the speakers and the symposium participants in Session 2 of the symposium.journal articl
Art History in Art Archives
Get PDFA mini-symposium titled “Aspects of Art Archives” was held on February 25, 2014 in the Seminar Room of the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo (NRICPT). In exhibitions examining post-World War II Japanese art held in Japan, there is often a display of archival materials, such as sketchbooks, letters, record photographs and video footage to assist with an understanding of the intentions of the artists in their creative process. Particularly in the case of artists and groups whose art form is performance or other actions, it would not be excessive to state that such archives are the only means by which we can verify the intentions of that expression. In recent years there has been a growing interest in postwar Japanese art in North America, and quite frequently overseas museums have begun to assemble archives of material on those artists deemed important in this period. The mini-symposium’s intention was both to look back on how Japan’s cultural properties research institutes, art museums and archival organizations handle archives of postwar Japanese art, and to also consider our desires regarding how such art archives should develop in the future.
Thus the theme of this mini-symposium was set as art archives in terms of contemporary art. The first section included individual presentations by the art historian Kajiya Kenji (then Associate Professor, Hiroshima City University, now Associate Professor, Kyoto City University of Arts), the archivist Uesaki Sen (Researcher, Keio University Art Center) and librarian Kikkawa Hideki (Associate Fellow, NRICPT). In their lectures they introduced the contemporary art archives in both America and Japan as seen from their various vantage points, and also gave keynote address-type elements such as the composition and methodologies of art archives. The second section consisted of a discussion among the speakers and symposium participants, based on those lectures and considering both the current state of art archives and our hopes for them in the future.
The lecture by Kajiya, an art historian specializing in American art history, was titled, “Art History in Art Archives.” Kajiya touched on the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum Archives of MOMA, New York, and the Special Collections of the Getty Research Institute, as he considered the function of archive materials in the study of contemporary American art. In addition, he also touched on the activities of the Oral History Archives of Japanese Art for which he is the director, noting what is desirable in the art archives essential for the study of postwar Japanese art, from the dual viewpoints of archive operator and user.
Uesaki’s talk was titled, “Archives and the Avant-Garde: Ephemerality of Expression and the Totality of Archive Materials,” and used the Sogetsu Art Center’s ephemera database as a model approach for avant-garde art archives. In this lecture he indicated that the archives of the group of materials known as ephemera do not contain the artworks themselves, but rather are the archives of all the miscellaneous materials closely related to the artworks. He further considered the process by which databases related to avant-garde art are planned and constructed, the meaning of organizing the different types of materials, the aims for archiving, and the philosophies inherent in archives themselves.
Kikkawa’s lecture was titled, “Records and Materials in the Notes Made by the Artist Nakamura Hiroshi: Focusing on the Sightseeing Art Research Institute and the Tokyo Art Pillar Exhibition.” The lecture introduced Nakamura’s production notebooks in the NRICPT collection. In these notebooks Nakamura recorded theactivities of the Avant-Garde Art Society of the latter half of the 1960s. These notebooks include materials regarding the operations of the Avant-Garde Art Society, such as meeting minutes, submission rules for exhibitions, photographs of display scenes and other materials. Kikkawa focused on the materials related to the Sightseeing Art Research Institute and the Tokyo Art Pillar exhibition, noting the meaning of such materials as research sources.
This Research Note is a summary of the individual papers from Session 1 of the symposium, as summarized by the speakers themselves. In addition, it reproduces the discussion held between the speakers and the symposium participants in Session 2 of the symposium.journal articl
Material for Art Research, Regarding the Shinkai Taketarô Materials
Get PDFThe descendants of the sculptor Shinkai Taketarô (1868–1927) have recently donated en masse the extant materials related to the artist to the National Research Center for Cultural Properties, Tokyo, (NRICPT). This article introduces those materials, notes their particular features, and considers what value these materials hold for research.
Shinkai Taketarô was born in 1868, the year that marked the shift from the Edo period to the Meiji period. He was born the eldest son to the family of a Buddhist sculptor in the center of present-day Yamagata city. At first he continued in the family’s work, but in 1886 he traveled to Tokyo to become a soldier. He enlisted in a cavalry regiment of the Imperial Guard. The horse figurines he created as a pastime were noticed by one of his superiors, and when he was discharged from the army in 1891, he became a pupil of Gotô Sadayuki and set out to be a professional sculptor. He distinguished himself as a wood sculptor, but his study of sculpture in Paris and Berlin from 1900–1902 led to a rising career as a Western style sculptor after his return to Japan.
After displaying his major work, Yuami, a life-sized nude female form, in the 1st Bunten Exhibition held in 1907, he became active as one of the leading figures in the government-sponsored exhibitions of the day. He also presented works with novel expression, such as the works that he dubbed ukiyo chôkoku, literally “floating world sculptures” at exhibitions held by such private groups as the Taiheiyô Gakai and the Kokumin Bijutsu Kyôkai. From the late Meiji period onwards he created numerous bronze images, including portrait sculptures of such major figures from modern Japanese history as Prince Arisugawa-no-miya Takehito, the military figure Ôyama Iwao, Maejima Hisoka, known as the father of Japan’s postal system, and the English architect Josiah Conder, the father of modern architecture in Japan.
The materials donated to the NRICPT cover a long period of Shinkai’s life, from the Meiji 20s when he started out as a sculptor to his final years in the early Shôwa period. They can be categorized into the following types:
A. Notebooks and pocket-sized notebooks
B. Sketches and copy drawings
C. Documents
D. Catalogues
E. Photographic glass negatives and paper prints of his works
F. Photographs and photograph albums
G. Reference photographs (in envelopes)
H. Large-scale photographs of the Hôryûji Kondô
I. Picture postcards of his works
J. Picture postcards of modern sculptures by other artists
K. Letters and other correspondence
L. Biographical materials
M. Reference materials
N. Notebooks inherited from Hirako Takurei
The materials included in Category A are: the notebooks Shinkai used in his daily life to write down ideas for works and other memos; his notes from the lectures he attended by the aesthetics scholar Ôtsuka Yasuji and the psychologist Matsumoto Matatarô at Tokyo Imperial University; and his expenses books in which he recorded his monthly finances.
Category B consists predominantly of copy sketches and other sketches drawn during his early period, while Category C includes his curriculum vitae, contracts drawn up with foundries and others upon the creation of his works, etc. Category D consists of lists of the ceramics in his own collection and a catalogue of the books he owned on a wide range of subjects, including those about Japan, China and the West.
Category E consists of the glass plate negatives of his major works, which have already been made publicly available on the NRICPT website. Categories F and G consist of the massive amount of photographic materials produced of his own works and their production process, while Category H contains high quality large-scale photographs of the wall murals in the Kondô, Hôryûji, Nara and Heian period Buddhist paintings. Categories I and J consist of picture postcards of sculptures. Category Iincludes works by Shinkai himself, while Category J consists of images of works by other sculptors. These two categories include many images of important works.
Category K consists primarily of letters addressed to Shinkai from his friends and associates. Categories L and M consist mainly of materials produced and assembled by his descendants and others when they were preparing Shinkai’s biography. Category N consists of notebooks left to Shinkai by his close friend Hirako Takurei.
These materials provide an image of the everyday life and art production process of a sculptor who personally experienced modern Japan’s process of defining the term chôkoku for the Western concept of sculpture. The pocketsized notebooks with their sketched ideas for works drawn in fresh, immediate strokes ably convey a sense of Shinkai as sculptor. The photographs of many of the works that are no longer extant give a sense of his richly experimental and diverse sculptural expression, ranging from modeled clay works to wood sculpture, sculpture in the round and relief sculpture, his use of color on his sculpture and how he tackled a wide array of subject matter. These materials urge a reconsideration of the various potentials inherent in modern Japanese sculpture.
These materials are also not only about Shinkai himself. They also include invaluable reference materials for the study of a wide spectrum of people of his day, from Hirako Takurei, Matsumoto Matatarô and Ôtsuka Yasuji to the various individuals who were the models for his portrait sculptures. The many photographs of these various figures alone give a real feel for the history of modern Japan, and bring us all the closer to the people of that time.
It is my hope that these materials will be a reference for scholars in a wide array of disciplines, and will serve as tools in advancing their studies. At the same time, I hope that they will bring about a reevaluation of the history of modern Japanese sculpture overall, and Shinkai Taketarô’s position within that history.journal articl
Landscape : restoration report : the cooperative program for the conservation of Japanese art objects overseas : No.2011-2
Get PDFケルン市博物館東洋美術館 (ドイツ連邦共和国) 所蔵 Museum fur Ostasiatische Kunst, Museen Köln賢江祥啓作, 紙本墨画 掛軸装1幅, 室町時代15 世紀 By Kenko Shokei, A hanging scroll, ink and light color on paper, 15th century, Muromachi era平成 23 年度修復事業 2011 Japanese Fiscal Yearboo
Monitoring and Controlling Microbial Contamination in the Exhibition Facility of Torazuka Tumulus
Get PDFThe exhibition facility of Torazuka Tumulus constructed in October 1980 was recently contaminated by microbial colonization on the walls and ceiling even though periodic fungicidal treatment had been performed. Although there is no clear scientific research
about the cause of the microbial contamination, it can be inferred that the increase of fungicide-resistant microbes may have been associated with the long-time use of fungicide.
Because of this unfavorable situation, the committee for the conservation of historic sites in Hitachinaka city decided to change the fungicidal treatment for controlling microbes to exhaustive cleaning in November 2011 according to the concept of integrated
pest management. In the present study, we aimed to monitor the changes of microbial contamination, more specifically of air-borne fungal concentration, in indoor air at the exhibition facility of Torazuka Tumulus.
The culturable air-borne fungal concentration in indoor air of the facility gradually increased until March 2013 after discontinuing fungicidal treatment. However, air-borne fungi decreased in October 2013 and were lowest in March 2014.Exhaustive cleaning was
performed two times (October 2013 and March 2014) and air-borne fungal concentration significantly decreased after the cleaning.
From these results it is considered that periodic cleaning for removing the microbes and organic substances supporting microbial growth is one of the effective countermeasures for controlling microbial contamination in the exhibition facility of Torazuka
Tumulus although further monitoring of the microbial contamination is still necessary.journal articl