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Sensoji Temple prospered during the Edo period through its ties with the shogun and other members of the ruling class. It was located in the Asakusa district of Edo (present-day Tokyo), the capital’s most celebrated pleasure quarters. Sensoji still stands and is a popular site, daily attracting thousands of people.
Hiroshige illustrates the main building of the temple complex, the Thunder Gate (Kaminarimon), built in 1633. Statues of the gods of thunder and wind would have stood in niches on either side. An enormous paper lantern hangs from the beam of the entrance. Some distance away from this gate are a five-storied pagoda and the Gate of Guardians (Nio-mon).
The open space linking the two gates is the Nakamise (literally, “stores in the middle area”), a famous, busy place where temporary stalls were put up during the temple’s festivals.
Kinryuzan Monastery at Asakusa, from the series, One Hundred Views of Famous Views of Edo, July 1856, by Ando Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797-1858). Ink and colors on paper. Gift of Japanese Prints from the Collection of Emmeline Johnson. Donated by Oliver and Elizabeth Johnson, 1994.34. © Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.
21st December 2012
Notes: 12
Love this photo by Antony Marshall, who snapped beautiful pictures of our gallery collection on his recent visit. We found him here on Tumblr.
A hidden gem in the Civic Center neighborhood, our galleries are great to get lost in. This particular piece is a Chinese spirit guardian, one of a pair, from approximately 500-535, made of painted low-fire ceramic. Spiny backed, strange, slightly grotesque, and almost comical, these figures were meant to protect the tomb from unwanted visitors.
- Camera: Canon EOS REBEL T2i
- Aperture: f/1.8
- Exposure: 1/250th
- Focal Length: 76mm
Reblogged From iantonymarshall
The gorgeous colors of fall make us hungry, and we’re thankful for these autumnal foods in our netsuke (tiny Japanese sculptures) collection.
Whatever you do on Thanksgiving, we hope it’s with loved ones and with good eats.
For more on our netsuke, click here. They’re a little bit like old school cell phone charms. Our netsuke collection is quite stellar.
This amazing painting from the Asian Art Museum collection is part of the current exhibition, Phantoms of Asia. It’s a contemporary show, and many people assume it’s one of the contemporary works - but it isn’t. Cosmological painting, approx. 1750–1850. India; Rajasthan. Opaque watercolors on cloth. From the Collection of William K. Ehrenfeld, M.D., 2005.64.54
— Submitted by J-Bru, for Ancient Modern
It’s Bring Your Dog to Work Day! Unfortunately we can’t partake in this, but thankfully we got some cute pups in our galleries. Here are just a handful.
To see more, just search our collection using whatever keyword you’d like. Happy surfing!
This artwork has always beguiled me. It looks like it was made yesterday—the lines and finish are flawless—and yet it dates back to nearly a thousand years ago.
— Submitted by H, for Ancient Modern
What old objects in the Asian Art Museum strike you as modern (or contemporary) in some way? With the exhibition Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past open, now is the time to ponder this.
Send in your candidates, with a short statement for each saying what you find modern about it. Don’t have your own photos of the collection? Find some here at our e-museum. Hint: do a search for a favorite animal, object, or interesting region to get started, and note the permalink at the bottom of each object’s entry (it might come in handy when you post your submission).
Here are a few picks by our chief curator, Forrest:
Less Is More
Vase, approx. 1050-1130. China; Hebei province. Glazed porcelain. The Avery Brundage Collection, B60P157.
“We have outgrown ornament; we have fought our way through to freedom from ornament.” So said the Austrian modernist architect Adolf Loos in his 1908 manifesto Ornament and Crime.
For many modern artists, architects, and designers eliminating ornament—and in fact eliminating any inessential element—was a crusade. The watchwords were “Truth to materials” and “Form follows function.”
What could be more stripped down, more elegantly pure, than this nearly thousand-year-old Chinese vase? Its contours are as simple and smooth as a bird’s egg, and its surface as lustrous as a seashell. This is an artwork to get lost in contemplating.
Less Is a Bore
Elephant throne (howdah), approx. 1870-1920. India; Chhattisgarh state, former princely state of Surguja. Partially gilded and painted silver over wood, with velvet and wicker. Acquisition made possible by Nancy B. Hamon in honor of Johnson S. Bogart. 2001.12.A-.C.
Or so said the American architect and theorist Robert Venturi. We look at a lavishly ornamented silver elephant throne and can’t help taking it as a piece of high camp: garish, middle-brow, essentially laughable. What do the lion and buffalo have to do with the peacock-panther? Why the solemn coat of arms amid the riotous Indian foliage? What is THE POINT?
But we live in chaos, with every kind of thing jostling every other. Maybe occasionally things that enter our field of vision make some sort of sense together, but usually they don’t. The commotion, the confusion, the jumpin indeterminacy are the point, y’all.
Have you ever really cast your eyes on this extraordinary modern object for more than a second? Visit Phantoms of Asia and then give it a try.
Sex and Death
The Hindu deity Shiva in the fierce form of Bhairava, approx. 1300-1500. India; Karnataka state. Chloritic schist. Gift of the Connoisseurs’ Council, 2000.6.
Nothing new about them. This voluptuous naked man is a form of the Hindu god Shiva. He has cut off a head (yes, “a”) of another god and in punishment must wander the world as a beggar with the head attached to his hand.
His matted hair stands up like a fright wig and he is decked with a necklace of skulls and other gruesome decorations. Disgusting, really. But—what about those pecs, those hips, that tight waist, that provocative swagger? In the myth of Shiva’s wanderings the people he passes are both repulsed and attracted, and so are we.
The quivering intersection of desire and violence: Jean Genet, anyone? Yukio Mishima? True Blood, Game of Thrones? With serious religious content we’re in the realm of Dead Man Walking.
Belly Laughs
Two-handled vessel in the shape of a water skin, approx. 1200-800 BCE. Northern Iran; probably Amlash. Earthenware. The Avery Brundage Collection, B60P2015.
If you’re as old as I am you remember an Alka Selzer commercial from the 1960s in which a man and a talking stomach get in a squabble. “We don’t get along. Heaven knows I’ve tried,” says the man. “He gave up hot tamales” the stomach grumbles. “Now he’s on a new kick: pepperoni pizzas.”
The talking stomach in the ad is a bag with eyes, a mouth, and sections of intestine waving like floppy antennae. Whether this 3000-year-old Iranian vessel in the shape of a water- or wine-skin can talk out loud, who knows. But it testifies to an age-old—and contemporary—delight in whimsy. The ancient Iranian potters could fashion symmetrical, precisely shaped vessels with ease. Making an irregular organic shape like a sewed up skin or bladder for holding liquid would be at least as challenging. The artistry here is in giving the clay version of a wine skin so much animation and quirky personality.
We’ve shown you some old objects that look modern. Now it’s your turn?
