Cang xin biography of martin
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Exhibition dates: 9th June – 20th October, 2024
Edo period (1615-1868)
Group of Inrō
18th century
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Edward C. Moore Collection, Bequest of Edward C. Moore, 1891
Public domain
Inrō are small, light, tightly nested boxes worn hanging from a man’s obi sash, as a Japanese kimono had no pockets. The term’s literal meaning, “seal basket,” probably refers to an early function, but later they held small amounts of medicin. Once they became mode items, inrō were carefully selected according to the season or occasion and coordinated with the attached ojime (sliding bead) and netsuke (toggle) as well as with the kimono and obi. Moore and his grupp surely studied the rik motifs and sophisticated production methods of the inrō he collected.
A change of pace this weekend.
Just because… I love beautiful things; I am a collector of antiques and object d’art; and I äga
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Introduction
This article is part of the investigation project of the research groups CORDES (University of Barcelona) and InterAsia (Autonomous University of Barcelona). I would also like to thank the artists who provided the images.
1This article explores different artistic practices referring directly to The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains (Yugong yishan愚公移山) included in the book Lie Zi列子, a story attributed to the Taoist philosopher Lie Yukou 列禦寇 (IV BCE).1 The text narrates the story of an old man who lived in Northern China and explains how each time he left his village he had to go around two large mountains. This elderly man, Yugong, gathered all the members of his family and proposed that they remove the mountains to open an easier path. They all agreed to work on the project, and a neighbour and her young child helped, too. However, some people in the village laughed at their undertaking and told the old man that his efforts were useless and his plan i
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Exhibition dates: 1st June 2019 – 17th May 2020
John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
The Island Pagoda
1873
Carbon print
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives
© Peabody Essex Museum. Photography by Ken Sawyer
Greetings from Australia.
Since we can’t go travelling ourselves at the moment let us travel, virtually, through time – back to the 19th century – and space, to journey with Scottish-born travel photographer up the River Min to the Chinese city of Fuzhou (Foochow). Let us wonder at these European colonial photographs, reflections of pagoda, bucolic landscapes, Eastern temples, Western churches and dangerous rapids. Thomson “portrayed a halcyon land, with romanticised vistas that reference the ethereal atmosphere of Chinese paintings and the sweeping panoramas of European paintings.”
Let us luxuriate, then, in these stunning carbon prints – their rich colour, their stillness – as lasting mementos of a vanishe