Nihonga on the Rocks: The Tenshin Memorial Museum of Art, Ibaraki
Alice Gordenker
At the edge of a wild and rocky sea coast in northern Ibaraki Prefecture, there is a museum dedicated to a man credited with revolutionizing Japanese painting -- even though he himself did not paint. As unlikely as that sounds, the homage is justified. Kakuzo Okakura -- best known in the West as the author of The Book of Tea -- brought to this remote location a tiny group of Japan's most promising painters and inspired them to find new ways of expressing space and light that greatly enriched modern Japanese painting. more...
Spreading the Word on Japanese Ink Painting
J.M. Hammond
With over 15,000 items in its collection, the Idemitsu Museum of Art in the Marunouchi district of Tokyo has been introducing the public to East Asian and Japanese art for just over half a century. Currently it is exploring the legacy of ink painting, or suiboku-ga, from its roots in ancient China -- a civilization in many ways considered the font of Asian culture -- through its many manifestations in Japan. more...
In the Zone: Manabu Ikeda and Yurie Kawagoe at Kanazawa's 21st Century Museum
Alan Gleason
Ever since it opened in 2004, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa has stood out as an architectural anomaly amid the old buildings and gardens of a city that rivals Kyoto as a bastion of traditional Japanese culture. Designed by the prizewinning architect team SANAA, the museum is a huge, flat, glass-walled white disk that resembles the Mother Ship in a sci-fi epic. more...
