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Post by Noriko on Dec 2, 2011 17:45:30 GMT -5
An article in the New York Times reviewed a new exhibit there: "Storytelling in Japanese Art": www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/arts/design/storytelling-in-japanese-art-at-the-met-review.htmlLooks like they're also putting out a companion book as well. I'm hoping to visit (I'll be home for the holiday break and home is New Haven, Connecticut, so I can go via train) because the article says "The Tale of Mice" is on exhibit and if it's the one I think it is (there are a few scrolls with this name), I'm very excited (my avatar on this site comes from a scroll with that name).
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Saionji Shonagon
New Member
One dreamed of becoming somebody. Another remained awake and became. (Found in a fortune cookie.)
Posts: 7,240
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Dec 2, 2011 18:11:21 GMT -5
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Post by Noriko on Dec 26, 2011 17:24:02 GMT -5
Just got back from a visit. The exhibit was huge and took up pretty much the entire Japanese art section and therefore, the museum was able to display quite a few scrolls as well as books and screens[1] The flat scrolls, however, were quite delightful and each one was accompanied with the entire story and the details of what was going on in each individual scene. The curators tried to solve the problem of being only able to see one part of the scroll at a time by reproducing images under the description but they were rather small. The curators attempted to rectify this as in another room, they had mounted touch tablets in an adjacent room and they had digitized (alas, only) one scroll which you could "scroll" through. Some of the subject matter was more interesting than others (I preferred the Genji pieces and the funny animals and bakemono scrolls[2]) but that is of course, a matter of opinion, since they also had histories/military battles, other fictions and Buddhist/religious tales so there's probably something for everyone.
[1]Though I wasn't a huge fan of the screens, mostly because how they were displayed made them very hard to look at. They were placed in a recessed area, severely folded and the lights were turned almost all the way down. While I know screens would have been viewed in low light, combined with the recess in the wall, they were difficult to see. This seems to be a persistent problem at the Met since I've seen other Japanese exhibits there before and the screens are always displayed this way. [2]They sort of displayed these together- scrolls with anthropomorphic creatures and ones with monsters.
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