Your brain: enjoy it and use it or lose it!
Special Note: As we head towards the upcoming World Parkinson Congress in Kyoto, Japan, I will try to post as much Japanese artwork as possible.
Every Thursday, as part of my personal “enriched environment” initiative, I post a piece of art, usually from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which recently released online some 400,000 high-resolution images of its collection. All artwork will show a sun (or sunlight) somewhere.
I won’t name the piece or the artist, but instead invite you to study the art and post a comment addressing one or more of these questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
If you have another idea, run with it.
Special Update! The New York Times website does this same exercise every Monday with a news photo that is uncaptioned and contains no text (click!). The Times asks viewers the same three questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
However, at the end of the week, the Times posts the background information on the picture. So, I’ve decided to do the same. I’ll still post an unlabeled piece of art on Thursday. But return on Sunday (for the Sunny Sundays post!) and you’ll find an update on the artwork here.
Note: To embiggen the image, click on it!
Portrait of Fukuchi Gen’ichiro (1843–?), October 1885
Portrait of Fukuchi Gen’ichiro (1843–?)
Artist: Kobayashi Kiyochika (Japanese, 1847–1915)
Period: Meiji period (1868–1912)
Date: October 1885
Culture: Japan
Medium: Polychrome woodblock print; ink and color on paper
Dimensions: Oban tat-e; 14 x 9 1/4 in. (35.6 x 23.5 cm)
Classification: Prints
Crazy Picture! A battle going on in the hill in the distance, and the man in Western dress standing upright between what looks like two tree trunks that were snapped off in a viscious storm. Are the ripped tree truncks supposed to signfigy something? And why is the man in the center, not dressed for battle, looking over his shoulder and taking notes? Is he composing poetry? It doesn’t make sense.
Questions only. Who do the two armies doing battle in the distance on the left belong to? What are they fighting about? Is the man in the center of the painting a Westerner or Japanese? What is the significance of the two split tree trunks, and the way they emanate out in opposite directions from where the man is standing. What does the writing say in the scroll-like object on the upper left? And are those more people or soldiers off in the distance to the right, right next to the book the man is holding?
I was thinking about the comment in a previous work of Japanese art, about how Western paintings are dominated by vertical and horizontal lines, whereas in traditional Japanese art diagonal lines lead the way. I see this picture as a combination of the two. The sloping cliffs, the line of soldiers wending their way through the water, and especially the two split tree trunks are all bold diagonals. But then you have the man in Western dress standing upright with two feet planted firmly on the ground. It makes for a dramatic statement. And is he a Westerner or Japanese? In one of the other pictures everyone got this wrong, including me.
I see a western man, (black wavy hair) in the foreground, very real, documenting something about a battle which may have happened in the past, judging by the size of the soldiers. Perhaps he is a historian, or a chronlicler of some kind. His name doesn’t sound western, but that may be a Japanese rendering of his real name. There is a sword lying at his feet, which is clearly significant, but of what? Was he once a soldier? The tree trunks have suffered a brutal tearing. Is that also a sign of war and devastation?