Striking Chords: Music in Ukiyo-e Prints (2021)

The book “Striking Chords: music in ukiyo-e prints” is a student version of a scholarly catalog that accompanies the RISD Museum’s ukiyo-e prints exhibition of the same title. ... This exhibition is a culmination of an ukiyo-e art history course taught at RISD in the fall of 2021. The project was generously accommodated by the RISD Museum. With the help of Wai Yee Chiong, Associate Curator of Asian Art, fifteen prints were selected from the collection of the RISD Museum. For the exhibition’s online component, which is still under construction, additional prints were chosen – two more from the RISD collection, four from the collection of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, Russia, and one from a private collection. All these works are included in the catalog. ... In the spirit of the exhibition topic, this project prompted the entire class to work in concordance as if an instrumental ensemble or even an orchestra. It is the students’ hope that their “Striking Chords” project does indeed strike a chord in the exhibition visitors. -- Foreword, Striking Chords: music in ukiyo-e prints Contributing Authors Joanne Ahn, Benjamin Anderson, Miranda Cancelosi, Yuanyuan Yuki Cao, Zhenrui Ray Cao, Naiqian Chen, Julia Chien, Lynn Cho, Yewon Chun, Zewei Feng, Jamie Gim, Nicholas Grassi, Tzu-Chun Hsu, Jessie Jing, Jackson Kneath, Yingshuet Celine Lam, Haoyu Li, Rilia Li, Jason Liao, Serene Lin, Yichen Ariel Pan, Lydia Pinkhassik, Xiaoqi Shen, Shuixin Wang, Jihyun Woo, Catherine Wu, Jack Wulf, Liu Yang, Yue Zi, Qi Caroline Zou.https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/thad_studentwork_ukiyo-e_prints_exhibitioncatalogs/1008/thumbnail.jp

Striking Chords II: Music in Ukiyo-e Prints (2022)

The theme of music in ukiyo-e prints has been explored by the RISD art history students for two semesters (fall 2021 and spring 2022) in a hands-on curatorial format. The resulting exhibition Striking Chords: Music in Ukiyo-e Prints, is on view at the RISD Museum from February through July 2022. The spring semester project is virtual. However, the approach is similar – to comprehensively study music-related prints in the collection of the RISD Museum and to share the findings with interested audiences, albeit in digital format. Nineteen prints have been selected. In the exhibition’s virtual space, they are displayed according to thematic areas. Those display areas include prints illustrating music played for leisure – sometimes solely for pleasure but occasionally for celebratory occurrences or for moral instruction. Another area shows prints associated with professional performers – actors of the kabuki theater, chanters of the puppet theater, or street entertainers. There are also sections dedicated to prints that depict music performed within mythical lore, or ceremonial music as well as martial music. ... By close visual exploration of this selection of prints, by investigating circumstances of the scenes represented and peculiarities of the objects depicted, by striving to uncover cultural references imbedded in these images, by listening to music played on the instruments depicted students who curated this exhibition sought to come closer to the beautiful and intriguing world of ukiyo-e prints. The sound continues for but a moment, ukiyo-e prints were designed as ephemera, but their resonance appears timeless. We hope that this exhibition’s virtual visitors will echo these sentiments. -- Foreword, Striking Chords II: Music in Ukiyo-e Prints Contributing Authors Leslie Berumen Flores, Alisa Boardman, Junyi Cao, Yuhi Chang, Connie Cheng, Meicheng Chi, Cyra Cupid, Monet Fukawa, Nina Hong, Ryan Hsiao, Rose Kim, Timothy Li, Jessica Lin, Baidurjya Madhav, Jae Nam, Maxton O\u27Connor, Jiyeon Park, Zhiying Shi, Hanna Suros, Milo Tomizawa, Kevin Wu, Jingjing Yang, Yisheng Yuan, Jiayun Carina Zhang, Zizheng Roye Zhang, Alex Jihao Zhu.https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/thad_studentwork_ukiyo-e_prints_exhibitioncatalogs/1009/thumbnail.jp

Asakusa ~ Gateway to the Floating World (2019)

Asakusa, a bustling district of Japan’s capital, emerged as a heart of city life during the Edo period (1603-1868). Its popularity continued after Edo was renamed Tokyo in 1868 soon after the beginning of the Meiji era. ... Thus, Asakusa came to function as a physical and metaphorical path to and site of ukiyo – ‘the floating world,’ an Edo period term, referring to the modern habits and aspirations of townspeople. The notion of ukiyo embraced the lifestyle of city dwellers, their pleasure-seeking, vanity and devotion, intellectual sophistication and playfulness. All this was captured with remarkable exactitude in the ‘pictures of the floating world’ – ukiyo-e, the style of visual art that started in painting but truly developed in the mass-produced medium of woodblock printing. It was this big theme – Asakusa as the hub of popular culture – that became the focus of inquiry for RISD students of the art history curatorial course Ukiyo-e Prints (H 791) in the fall semester of 2019. Investigating the original ukiyo-e prints from the collection of the RISD Museum, students have selected Keisai Eisen’s triptych Picture of the Kanzeon Thunder Gate at the Kinryuzan Sensoji Temple in Edo, 1828, as the nucleus of their exhibition project. Students then singled out aspects of the culture of the ‘floating world’ that are present in this composition or resonate with it. Accordingly, nine additional prints were chosen for the exhibition project to illustrate the relevant topics. A challenging task was to elaborate a meaningful layout of the exhibition in which the nucleus print had to hold the central position, while all other were envisioned as displayed radially. Working in small study groups, students explored all prints in comprehensive essays, discussed their findings in class with their peers, and put together a scholarly catalog. ... -- Foreword, Asakusa ~ Gateway to the Floating World Contributing Authors Barbara Bieniek, Cain Cai, Anna Campbell, Jina Choi, Kaanchi Chopra, Olivia Diamond, Connor Gewirtz, Mary Iorio, Peiqing Jiang, Kalyani Kastor, Roger Li, Emily Mahar, Connor Nguyen, Jacqueline Qiu, Xin Lan Violet Ren, Chenxi Tracy Shi, Song Tan, Cam Unruh, Xiaoben Wang, Yixiao Owen Wang, Jordan Weed, Yuki Xu, Qingyi Yang, Yinan Yang, Yueting Val Zhaohttps://digitalcommons.risd.edu/thad_studentwork_ukiyo-e_prints_exhibitioncatalogs/1006/thumbnail.jp

Imaginary Aesthetic Territories: Australian Japonism in Printed Textile Design and Art

This creative production thesis considers how Japanese aesthetic philosophies have influenced textile design and art by examining its use, significance and representation in fashion and art in Australia. Correlations between the space indicated in Japanese pictorial principles and the open space of the Australian landscape are considered, as are the conventions of constructed exoticism inherent to Japonism. The thesis and creative works respond to issues of Australian cultural identity, hybridity, orientalism and cultural yearning

Mirrors & Masks: Reflections and Constructions of the Self

Catalogue of an exhibition held at Bryn Mawr College March 23, 2017-June 4, 2017, curated by Steven Z. Levine and Carrie M. Robbins and students in the year-long course Mirroring the Self/Exhibiting the Self. The exhibition, organized by 11 student curators considers the role of mirrors, masks, makeup, and masquerade in explorations of the self across the centuries and cultures that are represented in Bryn Mawr College’s Art & Artifacts Collection.https://repository.brynmawr.edu/bmc_books/1031/thumbnail.jp

Mirrors & Masks: Reflections and Constructions of the Self

Catalogue of an exhibition held at Bryn Mawr College March 23, 2017-June 4, 2017, curated by Steven Z. Levine and Carrie M. Robbins and students in the year-long course Mirroring the Self/Exhibiting the Self. The exhibition, organized by 11 student curators considers the role of mirrors, masks, makeup, and masquerade in explorations of the self across the centuries and cultures that are represented in Bryn Mawr College’s Art & Artifacts Collection.https://repository.brynmawr.edu/bmc_books/1031/thumbnail.jp

SUKIMA: Vertical Views of the Floating World (2017)

Sukima is a Japanese word for a crack in a door, a narrow space that opens up when the panels of the sliding doors are pushed to the sides. ... You’ve seen enough to electrify your imagination and let it complete the picture. This is what happens when you look at a long and narrow ukiyo-e print in a pillar format – hashira-e. Or perhaps this partial sight only unleashes your curiosity and, craving a fuller view, you expand the narrow slit and can now enjoy broader vistas replete with details. For such cases ukiyo-e designers came up with upright diptychs and even triptychs. Exploration of these two types of perception – we can describe them as an evocative one (in the case with the hashira-e) and an evidence-based (in the case of vertical polyptychs) – became a focus of an ukiyo-e prints exhibition curated by RISD students in the fall semester of 2017 as a part of their art history course. The project was based on the collection of the RISD Museum that has continuously supported students’ aspirations to acquire real- life curatorial experience. The current exhibition is the fifth in succession. ... -- Foreword, SUKIMA: Vertical Views of the Floating World Contributing Authors Meredith Barone, Anna Rose Chi, Emilee Chun, Pooja Cavale, Clara Creavin, Indy Dang, Cindy Del Rio, Janice Gan, Sophi Miyoko Gullbrants, Jung Eun Han, Janice Kim, Yujin Kim, Tamao Kiser, Quincy Kuang, Osub Lee, Kirthank Manivannan, Zachary Nguyen, Jay Park, Pornmanie Na Snidvongs, Jaeyong Sung, Pornpiya Mim Tejapaibul, Lara Torrance, Clarke Waskowitz, Anna Xuan, Chi Yang, Katherine Yoon, Qianyi Zhang.https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/thad_studentwork_ukiyo-e_prints_exhibitioncatalogs/1004/thumbnail.jp

Marching Through the Floating World: Processions in Ukiyo-e Prints (2020)

Marching through the Floating World is a book that accompanies a student curated virtual exhibition of the same title. This exhibition is dedicated to images of processions in ukiyo-e woodblock prints. Ukiyo-e or “pictures of the floating world” was a vibrant style of urban art that flourished in Japan in the 17th- 19th century, predominantly in the form of mass-produced woodcuts. Steeped in everyday pleasurable pastimes of townspeople, ukiyo-e prints reflected contemporary culture to its fullest, whether fact or fiction, often the two amalgamated in a witty way. Processions constituted a noticeable theme in ukiyo-e prints as they were an integral part of the commoners’ visual experience. Daimyo processions were traveling from the warlords’ domains to the shogunal capital of Edo (Tokyo) and back as demanded by the sankin-kotai or alternate attendance system. Community processions with exotic floats were essential for matsuri, Shinto and Buddhist festivals. Art, however, goes beyond reality, and in ukiyo-e prints one sees daimyo processions parodied by beautiful women or mimicked by boys. Parades by foreign embassies also appear in ukiyo-e prints, primarily parades of the Korean embassies, often fantasized. Depicted were also processions of supernatural beings or imaginary nostalgic processions in prints of the Meiji era. Students’ research essays on prints like those mentioned above (and more!) were compiled into a book, which together with educational wall labels, programming brochures and souvenirs constitute an outcome of an art history course taught at RISD in the fall of 2020. This is the eighth project of the kind. ... -- Foreword, Marching Through the Floating World: Processions in Ukiyo-e Prints Contributing Authors Julie Alter, Kade Byrand, Cecilia Cao, Young Ju Choi, Nate Epstein-Toney, Emma Fujita, Catherine Hackl, Helina He Yuheng, Victoria Khrobostova, Benjamin Lamacchia, DaRong Lang, Sofie Levin, Julian Linares, Deirdre Rouse, Joshua Sun, Rauf Syunyaev, Tiffany Weng, Yue Xu, Yuanqing Echo Yao, Kaori Yasunagi, Manni Yu, Wei Zhang, Si Nong Summer Zheng, Holly Gaboriault.https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/thad_studentwork_ukiyo-e_prints_exhibitioncatalogs/1007/thumbnail.jp

The Color Revolution: Printed Books In Eighteenth-Century Japan

Beginning in the mid-1760s, images printed in more than five colors in early modern Japan were known as nishiki-e 錦絵, or “brocade pictures,” an appellation that signaled their visual richness in distinction to prints in monochrome or limited color. Most accounts of full-color printing locate the development of this technology and its visual impact in the medium of the single-sheet print, as part of the genre of ukiyo-e 浮世絵 (the “pictures of the floating world”). This project revises that view by considering the illustrated books produced in the full-color technique, which predate or appear contemporaneously with the so-called “nishiki-e revolution.” Closely analyzing the materiality and visual programs of these books reveals how their use of printed color not only constitutes an important shift in technical practices of printing, but also signals a wider engagement with the artistic, social, and scientific discourses of mid-eighteenth century Japan. Ranging from interest in the natural world to painting, from poetry to scientific classification, from elite milieux to commercial publishers, these illustrated books demonstrate the convergence of a diverse set of concerns upon the particular medium of the color-printed, thread-bound book. The three case studies analyzed in this dissertation take up books differentiated by subject matter, style, and artistic genres. The first two chapters examine a book of fishes and its sequel, on the theme of plants and insects; both books are genre-bending works that combine concerns of poetry, natural studies, and painting. The third chapter considers two picture books of the floating world (ukiyo-ehon 浮世絵本), which feature actors and prostitutes of the pleasure quarter, respectively. Tracing the movement of printed “full color” from its emergence in the context of coterie poetry groups to its later status as a commercial imperative, this study reframes the earliest full-color illustrated books as critical artifacts of technological and epistemological change for picture-making and print in early modern Japan, centered around the materiality and conceptual power of color