Series - Japan

Japan in art, modern or contemporary artists, traditional Japanese art...

A rarity, Japan seen by David Hockney, "Mount Fuji and Flowers", 1972. After his breakup with Peter Schlesinger in the summer of 1971, Hockney traveled to Japan with his friend Mark Lancaster. He made this work in London after his return, using a postcard of Mount Fuji and an ikebana manual. Perhaps an ironic response to the commercial culture he found in Japan, which contradicted his expectations of a pristine, bucolic landscape.

"Smoking Girl" by Yoshitomo Nara. Great contemporary Japanese artist.

I love Japan as seen by Westerners, like this watercolor by Felix Elie Regamey, "View of Arashiyama in Kyoto" from 1876. Regamey, (August 7, 1844 - May 7, 1907) came from a family of artists, father, brothers, all had careers in art.


Utamaro Kitagawa, "La coiffure". Series of "Yamauba and Kintaro", 1801. Insolence of the morning.



Wonderful document of Kabuki theater actors, but mostly sublime photo taken by Tamamura Kōzaburō, a photographer born in 1856 in Edo. He was the eldest son of a family related to the Rinnoji temple of Hoshino, a branch of the imperial family. In 1867, at the age of eleven, he entered as an apprentice to the photographer Kanamaru Genzō1 in the Asakusa district of Edo and remained there for seven years. At the age of eighteen, he then opened his own portrait studio in Asakusa in 1874. He quickly became one of the most important photographers in the country producing luxurious lacquered albums of colored views of Japan, paintings and magic lantern views that he exported all over the world and for which he had as regular clients the universities of Cambridge and Chicago. 
 

I continue my Japan series, there are so many beautiful things to show, like this photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson, "Kyoto", 1965.



Vraiment formidable ! Yayoi Kusama dans son exposition "Floor Show" at R. Castellane Gallery, New York.


Japan series, What humor in the title of this painting by Léonard Foujita, "Chat couturier", 1927.


Japan again with Takashi Murakami, "Mr. DOB", 2016.


Extraordinary photograph of Baron Raimund Von Stillfried c.1875, taken in Japan where he had a photo studio. Yes yes, in 1875! This photo is considered a masterpiece in the history of photography.


Here I am with Aki Kuroda, in 2015, in front of one of his paintings. Here is more than 40 years of friendship!


Aki Kuroda, "Space Rabbit I," Original lithograph, 2007.


Fudō Myōō (Sanskrit: Acala-vidyaraja), the leader of the Five Kings of Wisdom (Godai myōō), is the wrathful avatar of Dainichi Buddha and the tenacious protector of Buddhist law. His iconography, taken from the Dainichi Sutra, depicts his body as black or blue, with bulging eyes, protruding fangs biting his lower lip, and hair hanging over his left shoulder. In his left hand he carries a lasso to catch and bind demons and in his right hand a sword to decapitate them.

I particularly like this "Dancer" by Kobayakawa Kiyoshi, 1932. With the detail of the little toe sticking out of the shoe!