SAIGYO HOSHI, ‘Monk Saigyo’, ranks among the greatest of Japanese poets. Born an artistocrat in Heian-kyo, presentday Kyoto, Sato Norikiyo was the scion of a military family who became an attendant to the emperor Toba. He lived almost 1,000 years… Continue reading
THIS EXHIBITION IS in celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Japanese Art Society of America, formerly the Ukiyo-e Society of America. Like the Asia Society, the Japan Society, the Korea Society and the Rubin Museum of Art, JASA’s existence… Continue reading
FOLLOWING FOUR YEARS of intense preparation, the exhibition Masterpieces from the Ganges Delta: Collections from the Bangladesh Museums was scheduled to open at the Musée Guimet in early January, but now will only reach its audience through its magnificent catalogue. Less than… Continue reading
THIS IS A highly important exhibition because it is the first in the United States devoted to the Buddhist arts of Bhutan. With the exception of the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, there is almost no Bhutanese art… Continue reading
FOR A LONG time the term, ‘Swatow’ has been applied to a variety of Chinese export ceramics, including those from the 16th and 17th centuries. They were widely believed to come from Shantou, the Guangdong port after which they were… Continue reading
Yoshioka Sachio (b.1946, Kyoto) belongs to the fifth generation of master dyers and weavers founded in the 1840s by Yoshioka Jinnosuke in Kyoto. From the beginning of the 20th century, chemical dyes have been increasingly used in the textile industry… Continue reading
ON THE Nalanda Trail: Buddhism in India, China & Southeast Asia, a new exhibition about the diffusion of Buddhism in Asia, opened at Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum last November. Despite having been put together in a little under a year,… Continue reading
Kabuki theatre was one of the most dynamic art forms to emerge from Japan’s ‘floating world’, the extraordinary pleasure districts that thrived in major Japanese cities during the 18th and 19th centuries. With its dramatic storylines, lavish costumes and celebrity… Continue reading
THE KOTOHIRA SHRINE – popularly known as Konpira-San – is well-known as one of the main religious centres on the island of Shikoku. Until three bridges were built during recent decades to connect the mainland and ruin the previously magical… Continue reading