Japanese Illustrated Books

Ehon sumidagawa ryogan ichiran, vol 2, Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), Japan, Edo period, ca. 1805. Woodblock printed, ink and color on paper, paper covers. All images: The Gerhard Pulverer Collection of Japanese illustrated books, photos copyright the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian. 

Japanese woodblock-printed illustrated books (ehon) brought reading to the masses during the Edo period (1615-1868). Artists and writers created a range of designs for these books and the compact, paper-bound volumes circulated widely. 

Selections from the Gerhard Pulverer Collection of ehon, one of the premier collections outside of Japan, will be on view in the exhibition Hand-Held: Gerhard Pulverer's Japanese Illustrated Books at the Smithsonian's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, DC from April 6-August 11. Volumes exhibited cover several genres--design, crafts, literature, botany, travel, nature studies, scholarly texts, and poetry.

Above, Panoramic Views along the Banks of Sumida River, a woodblock print series of colorful works by Katsushika Hokusai, a well-known artist who studied Japanese, Chinese and European artistic traditions. Hokusai produced images as a print designer, book illustrator and painter, often incorporating striking landscapes into commissioned woodblock prints and books. 

"His genius is really about that remarkable combination of observation of natural phenomena and meticulous attention to arrangement of pattern and color that can't be seen in the work of any other artist in Japan during his time," says Ann Yonemura, associate curator of Japanese art at the Freer and Sackler Galleries.  

Ichiro gafu, Yashima Gakutei (active 1815-1830's), Japan, Edo period. Woodblock printed, ink and color on paper. 

Ichiro's Picture-Album, a woodblock-printed book of drawings of landscapes with figures by Ichiro, a studio name of printmaker, painter and draughtsman Yashima Gakutei. This book includes "kyoka" poems; text and images are created on the same woodblocks. 

Ehon kyoka yama mata yama, Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), Japan, Edo period, 1804. Woodblock printed, ink and color on paper. 

Mountain after Mountain, a kyoka poem-picture book by Hokusai depicting scenes in and around Edo (Tokyo). In the 1790s and early 1800s, Hokusai often produced images for poetry clubs, illustrating albums and prints showcasing poems. 

Kyoto meisho ehon miyako no nishiki, Kitao Masayoshi (1764-1824), Japan, Edo period, ca. 1787. Woodblock printed, ink and color on paper, added silk hardcover. 

Famous Places of Kyoto, a picture book by Kitao Masayoshi, an artist who produced novelette illustrations, paintings and printed albums. A volume of landscape prints that border between picture and map, combining symbolic and realistic elements. In the Edo period, people increasingly traveled to see famous places and historical sites and these types of picture books served as souvenirs. 

Toto shokei ichiran, Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), Japan, Edo period, 1800. Woodblock printed, ink and color on paper, paper covers. 

Fine Views of Eastern Capital at Glance by Hokusai, a volume depicting the sights of Edo. Print shown--Theater Street, an image of the Japanese Kabuki theater. 

"Through books, all of Japanese society could learn about culture, literature, science, religion, and distant places even through foreign contact was rare," says Yonemura. "Illustrated books were not only a source of information, but an important medium of artistic expression and entertainment that continues today." 

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 1050 Independence Avenue S.W., Washington, DC. 

The Bay Lights

All photography: Lucas Saugen. Courtesy of Illuminate the Arts. 

A light sculpture on the San Francisco Bay Bridge's West Span, the Bay Lights is designed by artist Leo Villareal. The piece consists of 25,000 LED lights and marks the 75th anniversary of the bridge. 

Leo tests the lights, encoded programming creates random and complex light sequences that shift and change, with no beginning, middle or end. 

I think when people see this work, it's really about creating an experience, a communal experience, and it will transform the entire Bay and turn it into a space. The effect my work has is to bring things to life and to activate spaces. I'm using abstraction, there's no images, there's no text, so people's perception of what the piece is will be highly subjective and no two people will see the same thing but there will still be this point of connection between many, many people. 

During a six-month period from September 2012 to March 2013, a crew of electricians installed the light system at night to minimize impact on bridge traffic. The lights are aligned in strands on the bridge's vertical cables, solar panels offset energy use. The piece will be on display from dusk to 2am for two years, viewable from San Francisco and points north.

The Bay Lights is presented by Illuminate the Arts, a San Francisco non-profit dedicated to the creation and presentation of community-activating public art. 

The Bay Lights is a monumental piece of public art and my hope is that it will unleash all sorts of creativity around the Bay Area, change the way people feel about what can be done and really get art out and into the public realm in a very large way and I hope it will catalyze different arts groups and inspire many different groups in the Bay Area to create, to start making things and sharing and enjoying in a big way. 

Garry Winogrand

Garry Winogrand, New York World's Fair, 1964; gelatin silver print, Collection SFMOMA, gift of Dr. L.F. Peede, Jr. All images copyright The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco. 

A retrospective of work by artist Garry Winogrand (1928-1984), a photographer of American life from the 1950s through the early 1980s, shows at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Garry Winogrand brings together the artist's more well-known images with newly printed photographs from his unexamined archive of late work. More than half of the photographs have never been exhibited. Considered one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, Winogrand photographed cities, people, car culture, and rodeos, among other subjects, in New York, Texas and California. 

Garry Winogrand, Los Angeles, 1964; gelatin silver print; Collection SFMOMA, gift of Jeffrey Fraenkel. 

He let ambiguity into his images, a mysteriousness, didn't provide interpretation, and left viewers to form their own conclusions. Early on, some considered his pictures formally "shapeless" and "random", but critics later acknowledged him for certain characteristics: tilted horizons and an eye for the haphazard.

My prints are not those kind of pictures that people easily put on their walls, they're not that window onto a nice landscape or something. They aren't. 

Garry Winogrand, John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York, 1968; gelatin silver print; collection of John and Lisa Pritzker. 

Winogrand began working as a photographer while studying painting at Columbia University, supplying photographs to general interest magazines.  His career was further shaped by the new culture of photography in the context of galleries and museums. He photographed the dislocation of urban life, the rise of the suburb and the skepticism of youth. He had a considerable amount of airport work, which developed over a long time frame, from 1958 to 1983. 

Garry Winogrand, Los Angeles, 1964; gelatin silver print; Garry Winogrand Archive, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. 

It's not how I do anything. Maybe the correct language would be how the fact of putting four edges around a collection of information or facts transforms it. A photograph is not what was photographed, it's something else. I photograph to find out what things look like, photographed.

Garry Winogrand, Los Angeles, ca. 1980-83; gelatin silver print; Garry Winogrand Archive, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. 

The current exhibition provides a reevaluation of Winogrand's career arc, accomplishments and contribution to 20th century photography. On view through June 2 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third Street. 

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675, Delft), Girl with a Pearl Earring, ca. 1665, oil on canvas, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague. All images courtesy of the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis. 

The de Young Museum, San Francisco, is the first North American venue to present Girl with a Pearl Earring: Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis, a selection of paintings from the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague. The museum hosts 35 paintings highlighting the artistic achievements of the Dutch Golden Age, spanning the 17th century, including Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer and works by Rembrandt van Rijn. Sometimes called "the Dutch Mona Lisa," Girl with a Pearl Earring is one of only 36 known paintings by Vermeer and rarely travels outside the Netherlands. 

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669, Leiden), Portrait of Rembrandt with a Gorget, ca. 1629, oil on panel, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis. 

During the Dutch Golden Age, a significant shift occurred in the technique of painting and in subject matter. Secular subjects replaced religious themes. Portraiture focused on ordinary people, had a more relaxed approach and lacked the formality of traditional portraiture. Similarly, genre scenes depicted everyday life in the Netherlands. 

Artists established a penchant for careful study and naturalistic rendering, in opposition to the idealized beauty of classicism. In the entrepreneurial culture of the Dutch Republic, they painted more often for the open market than for patrons and sought out works of art on the market as objects of study. Amsterdam supported a lively art and luxury goods market. 

Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750, Amsterdam), Vase of Flowers, 1700, oil on canvas, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis. 

Nearly all Dutch artists of the time (excluding Rembrandt's art, which had an exceptional range) specialized, some narrowly. A painter of still life might concentrate on a particular class of objects, as evident in the works of Rachel Ruysch, an artist who specialized in still life paintings of flowers, less three-dimensional and more decorative. She served as court painter to the Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm in Dusseldorf. 

Willem Heda (1590-1680, Haarlem), Still Life with a Roemer and Watch, 1629, oil on panel, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis. 

Willem Heda's still life composed of a fish, capers, lemon, bread roll, hazelnuts, wineglasses, silver tazza, and timepiece features neutral grey and brown hues. Monochrome still lifes flourished in Haarlem from the 1620s onward. Heda was one of the leading practitioners. He excelled at painting richly nuanced works describing a variety of textures and light reflections on shiny surfaces.

Types of paintings in the exhibition are strongly associated with Dutch art of the Golden Age: Landscape, genre, still life, portraiture, and history painting. A body of work original in approach and varied in subject matter. The Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, which has not lent a large selection of works from its holdings in nearly thirty years, is undergoing an extensive renovation that makes this opportunity possible. On view through June 2 at the de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco. 

Rembrandt's Century

Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669), The Landscape with the Three Trees, 1643, etching, drypoint and engraving, copyright Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. 

Drawn from the collection of works on paper in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco's Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Rembrandt's Century features a wide range of artworks from the 17th century. At the time, printmaking was of particular cultural importance. "More than any other fine objects, prints circulated extensively throughout the 17th century art world, broadcasting artistic, political and scientific development far and wide," says curator James Ganz. 

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Shell (Conus Marmoreus), 1650, etching, drypoint and engraving, copyright Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. 

The exhibition explores contributions Rembrandt, his predecessors and followers made to the print culture of the era, through portraiture, still life, natural history, scenes of daily life, and landscape. Engravings, etchings, ink drawings, and watercolors illustrate a range of printmaking and drawing techniques. 

On view through June 2 at the de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco.