In 1603, Tokugawa Ieyasu became the first of the Tokugawa family shogun, the military dictators of Japan. His ascension brought an end to almost 400 years of civil wars. To avoid the cauldron of plots, schemes and court intrigue in… Continue reading
A country that has for centuries enjoyed a unique mosaic of ethnicities, cultures, religions, and sects has been reduced in six years of senseless factional war to brutally divided fiefs with ruined cities and towns, and scorched landscape. Now, an… Continue reading
The Rama Epic: Hero, Heroine, Ally, Foe at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco is the most complete exploration of Ramayana-related art to be seen in the US. Exhibition curator and editor of the catalogue Forrest McGill has assembled 135… Continue reading
Confucius on Jade said: ‘The gentlemen scholars of antiquity all enjoyed the extraordinary qualities found in jade: warmth, smoothness, and a certain gloss, it had a benevolent and good character, as it is considered fine, compact, yet strong, like a… Continue reading
You get to see it briefly from Atami or Mishima, between the tunnels as you head towards Kyoto on the Shinkansen Bullet Express; a fleeting glimpse of steep forested mountains rising from the sea on the left-hand side of the… Continue reading
‘I do not believe television. I do not believe the newspapers. I do not believe movies, they all lie. Opera lies. Go to the church or temple to obtain truth? They both lie. The government lies. What I learned in… Continue reading
When the dance troupe of the Cambodian royal court visited France in July 1906 they inspired Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), one of the greatest sculptors of the 19th century, to create 150 superb drawings in just a few days. Rodin &… Continue reading
This ground-breaking exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is art oriented, but the art is a bold sociological coverage about the main subject, the wakashu of Edo, the great merchant-class capital of Japan which by the 1760s had become… Continue reading
THE JAMEEL PRIZE is awarded biennially for contemporary art and design inspired by Islamic tradition. The resulting exhibition of the fourth edition recently opened at the Pera Museum, Istanbul, where the Prize was awarded to a Pakistani artist, Ghulam Mohammad.… Continue reading
A MONSTER tsunami uproots a city. Modern tough guys lock samurai-style in battle. Candy-coloured streams of animals and flowers hyper-pixilate. These dramatic visual moments are among those to be encountered in Garden of Unearthly Delights: Works by Ikeda, Tenmyouya & teamLab,… Continue reading