Reflections 4 - The Japanese galleries
I come back to the theme that marked my entry into the Japanese galleries: how little I know about this country's history and art and culture. My brief introductory exploration of these galleries only emphasizes how much I have to learn.
Two things occur to me, though:
1) Japanese art would not be possible without Chinese art. There are so many ways in which the Japanese borrowed both subjects and styles of depiction from the Chinese, although they may have added their own special and distinctive touches (painting on folding screens, for instance). I'm not bad at distinguishing Florentine from Sienese paintings of the 14th century (or so I'd like to think, anyway!), but I am not sure that I could accurately identify many scroll paintings as Chinese or Japanese.
2) The representation of nature seems central to Japanese art. I realize that what I have seen in the Japanese galleries is part of a special exhibit whose theme is the depiction of nature, and that Japanese painters did plenty of paintings of samurai and geishas, etc. But there does seem to be a close affinity with natural phenomena - perhaps not so many large landscapes as in Chinese art (although again, landscapes were the subject of the special exhibition in the Chinese galleries!) but rather, close-up observations of deer, birds, trees, and other natural phenomena.
Perhaps the larger lesson is that the objects a museum puts on show influence our perceptions of the art and culture those objects represent. And I recognize that my reflections are based on a review of my entries on the works I chose to write about. Still, my generalizations are so basic that they seem non-controversial; had I chosen entirely different objects, the generalizations would still stand.
Two things occur to me, though:
1) Japanese art would not be possible without Chinese art. There are so many ways in which the Japanese borrowed both subjects and styles of depiction from the Chinese, although they may have added their own special and distinctive touches (painting on folding screens, for instance). I'm not bad at distinguishing Florentine from Sienese paintings of the 14th century (or so I'd like to think, anyway!), but I am not sure that I could accurately identify many scroll paintings as Chinese or Japanese.
2) The representation of nature seems central to Japanese art. I realize that what I have seen in the Japanese galleries is part of a special exhibit whose theme is the depiction of nature, and that Japanese painters did plenty of paintings of samurai and geishas, etc. But there does seem to be a close affinity with natural phenomena - perhaps not so many large landscapes as in Chinese art (although again, landscapes were the subject of the special exhibition in the Chinese galleries!) but rather, close-up observations of deer, birds, trees, and other natural phenomena.
Perhaps the larger lesson is that the objects a museum puts on show influence our perceptions of the art and culture those objects represent. And I recognize that my reflections are based on a review of my entries on the works I chose to write about. Still, my generalizations are so basic that they seem non-controversial; had I chosen entirely different objects, the generalizations would still stand.
November 2, 2018
I took a wonderful gallery tour with John Carpenter, the curator of Japanese art at the Met. After it was over, I dared to ask my question about how to distinguish Japanese and Chinese paintings. It was comforting to hear that, when it comes to literati paintings (which largely dominated the Chinese galleries and occupy an important place in the Japanese ones as well), it sometimes comes down to reading the artist's signature; otherwise, the works can look very similar.
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