日本語Monthly Archives: April, 2017
Profile
2017/4/30
Works mainly made of gold
2017/4/29
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Image size H 46 cm x W 151 cm
Gold foil, silver foil, rock paint
Image size H 95 cm x W 340 cm
Gold foil, silver foil, rock paint
(日本語) 襖絵（ふすまえ）
2017/4/25
Votive paintings and Auspicious paintings
Votive paintings and Auspicious paintings
There are two kinds of Votive paintings. One is the pentagonal Ema paintings of the Shinto tradition and the other is the lotus petal shaped Sange of Buddhism.
One can write a wish on the back of an Ema tablet, and it is believed that the arrow shape of the pentagon would deliver the wish to heaven.
The Buddhist Sange originates from the belief that when the Buddha was born, flowers showered down from heaven. Since that time, people strew flower petals to express great joy. But it was out of concern for the flowers that they stopped that practice, and instead, cut petal shapes out of paper. It wasn’t until about one thousand years ago that they thought that it might be nice to paint on the paper and the Sange was born.
Both Sange and Ema were printed in great quantities, and thrown into the crowds as part of a ceremony or sold at temples or shrines for good luck.
Auspicious paintings were popular until about 150 years ago, They generally appeared to be ordinary paintings which actually had a hidden meaning only the owner would know. The painting would contain a play on words or symbolic meaning which would bring good luck. Many Sange and Ema were also auspicious paintings.
What are KAKEJIKU?
What began as a way for traveling priests to easily transport buddhist mandalas, the hanging scroll painting, or kakejiku arrived in Japan in the sixth century.
In order to accommodate this new fad, Japanese architects created special alcoves to function as altars to hang these religious paintings and present food or flowers as offerings.
This space quite quickly became more secular in which paintings of flowers and reminders of the seasons were displayed and changed once or twice a month in celebration of and in coordination with the changing faces of nature.
Japanese architecture and interior design came to almost completely focus all attention on the alcove, or tokonoma so that the whole impression of the house changed completely with the hanging of a new scroll painting.
ようこそ
2017/4/24
(日本語) 屏風とは / What’s byo-bu （参考別レイアウト版）
2017/4/22