Evenings for Educators 2019–20
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^ Education Department Evenings for Educators Los Angeles County Museum of Art 5905 Wilshire Boulevard 2019–20 Los Angeles, California 90036 Every Living Thing: Animals in Japanese Art Every Living Thing: Animals in Japanese Art is the Twelve Animals to Protect the Safety of the Home first exhibition in the United States to bring together combines all twelve zodiac animals to create a kind artistic representations of animals in all media across of super creature that has special powers to watch Japanese history from the fifth century to the present. over the home and help bring about a bountiful On view until December 8, 2019, the exhibition is harvest. Adopted from China in the sixth century, the an excellent opportunity to expose your students Japanese zodiac, or Junishi, is used to order time to nearly two hundred works of art that shed light and space, and also provides information about one’s on the relationship between humans and animals in personality traits and fortune. Japanese culture. Plentiful connections can be made between exhibition content and core content areas, Sacred Deer of Kasuga Shrine and Pair of Sacred including History-Social Sciences, English Language Foxes are carved wooden figures that serve as Arts, and the Life Sciences. messengers for or incarnations of Shinto deities, or kami. An ancient Japanese faith that continues The Japanese reverence for nature is underpinned to this day, Shintō involves showing reverence by the nation’s unique spiritual heritage of Shintō toward kami through prayer, offerings, festivals, and and Buddhism, resulting in artwork that represents other worshipful expressions. Deer are especially animals in a wide variety of ways: as spiritual, meaningful in Nara, where they are represented supernatural, or auspicious beings; as symbols of both in artistic form at the shrine Kasuga Taisha and power; as sentient beings capable of achieving through living deer that occupy the surrounding park. salvation; and as manifestations of the beauty of the Foxes, often associated with mischief and trickery, natural world. symbolize the important deity Inari, who oversees rice cultivation. The essays in this packet take a close look at five artworks in the exhibition—painted screens, a Japan’s other primary religious practice is Buddhism. woodblock print, two carved wooden statues, and Within a Buddhist worldview, animals are viewed as a scroll painting—that illuminate the importance of sentient beings able to attain salvation. This belief is animals in Japanese culture. Each artwork offers often expressed in art that demonstrates a symbiotic insight into how the Japanese relate to nature and relationship between humans, animals, and plants. the roles that animals play in everyday life. Kanō Eitai’s scroll painting Hōjō-e Ritual of Releasing Captured Animals depicts a Buddhist ceremony that Cranes by Maruyama Okyo is an Edo period pair of involves freeing captive animals so that, like humans, screens that celebrates the beauty of red-crowned they might escape the cycle of suffering after death and gray cranes. Likely based on actual birds that the and achieve enlightenment. artist observed at the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, the paintings are some of the first in Japan to represent Much of Japanese art is characterized by a deep animals directly from nature. The screens’ gold interest in animals and can reveal rich information backgrounds also highlight the birds’ auspicious about Japanese belief systems and ways of life. We significance: cranes were traditionally believed to live hope this resource packet will allow you to share for one thousand years and are therefore symbols of Japanese culture with your students and open their longevity and good luck. minds to animals’ importance as unique sources of beauty, Shintō messengers, powerful zodiac symbols, A woodblock print from 1858 entitled Picture of the and recipients of Buddhist compassion. Works Cited Ambros, Barbara, Thomas Blenman Hare, Federico Marcon, Masaaki Arakawa, National Gallery of Art (U.S.), Kokusai Kōryū Kikin, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Princeton University Press. The Life of Animals in Japanese Art. Edited by Robert T Singer and Masatomo Kawai. Washington, District of Columbia: National Gallery of Art, 2019. Muchnic, Suzanne. “Prized 18th century screens join LACMA’s Japanese art collection.” Los Angeles Times. Accessed August 8, 2019. https://www. latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-xpm-2013-jan- 17-la-et-cm-8th-century-screens-lacma-collection- 20130117-story.html. Screech, Timon. The Shogun’s Painted Culture : Fear and Creativity in the Japanese States, 1760–1829. Envisioning Asia. London: Reaktion, 2000. These curriculum materials were prepared by Lara Schilling and designed by David Hernandez. © 2019 Museum Associates/LACMA. All rights reserved. Evenings for Educators is made possible by The Rose Hills Foundation, the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Foundation, The Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation, and the Mara W. Breech Foundation. All education and outreach programs at LACMA are underwritten by the LACMA Education Fund and are supported in part by the William Randolph Hearst Endowment Fund for Arts Education, Annette Hochfeld in honor of Ernst and Hedel Hochfeld, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, Katharyn Alvord Gerlich, the Margaret A. Cargill Arts Education Endowment, the Rhonda S. Zinner Foundation, and Gloria Ricci Lothrop. ^ Education Department Evenings for Educators Los Angeles County Museum of Art 5905 Wilshire Boulevard 2019–20 Los Angeles, California 90036 Cranes, 1772, Edo period (1772–1780) Maruyama Ōkyo These may be seventeen of the best-known cranes in brought over from China around the eighth century, the history of Japanese art, yet they seem completely in the late Nara period. Literally meaning “wind wall,” unfazed by their reputation as they bob and peck byōbu were typically used to block wind drafts in their way across two folding screens (byōbu). traditional open-layout Japanese homes. They were also used as diplomatic gifts, as decoration in Shintō Painted by renowned artist Maruyama Ōkyo in or Buddhist temples, and as symbols of wealth and 1772, the screens embody his naturalistic style, power by the elite. which the artist achieved by working directly from nature. Ōkyo’s approach to painting was considered When Maruyama Ōkyo’s Cranes joined LACMA’s revolutionary at the time, when artists were trained to collection in 2011, Japanese Art Curator Robert copy sketches and paintings by other artists instead Singer proclaimed, “this is the finest pair of Japanese of directly observing the natural environment. Ōkyo screens to leave Japan in its 440-year history of even founded his own school based on this new style Western contact.”2 Considered by many to be among of painting called the Maruyama school. the most beautiful and unusual Japanese screens, Cranes enchants with its majestic, life-size birds set Ōkyo probably based the cranes in these screens on in an abstract golden world. birds he observed at the Imperial Palace in Kyoto as they foraged, rested, slept, and preened. Speaking about his artistic process, Ōkyo once reflected, “for Discussion Prompts my part, I always have a small diary with me for use in daily drawing. When I see mountains, rivers, 1. Ōkyo chose to fill the backgrounds of the grasses, trees, birds, animals, insects, fish, people, screens with gold leaf instead of a naturalistic and anything else in its living state, I believe I should landscape. Why do you think he chose to do copy it down.”1 that? How does the gold background affect how you perceive the cranes? Despite Ōkyo’s faithfulness to nature, there is no 2. What would these screens look like if they horizon line in the paintings and the cranes do not had naturalistic backgrounds? How would appear before a naturalistic background. Instead, that change your impression of the cranes? they go about their daily activities amid flat squares Research crane habitats and make a drawing of shimmering gold leaf. Look closely and you will or painting of them. see that there are two different species interacting on 3. In recent years, threats such as overhunting, the screens: red-crowned cranes (tanchozuru) and habitat loss due to climate change, and gray cranes. pollution have led to the red-crowned crane’s near-extinction. Luckily, conservation efforts Cranes are important, mystical animals in Japanese have succeeded in bringing back this important culture. They were traditionally believed to live for animal. Today it is on the endangered species one thousand years and are therefore symbols of list. What are some ways that art can be used longevity as well as good luck. Cranes appear across to help endangered animals? all art forms and are especially popular subjects for origami. An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds one thousand paper cranes will be 1 Timon Screech, The Shogun’s Painted Culture: Fear and Creativity in the Japanese States 1760–1829, (Reaktion Books, 2000), 193. granted a wish. 2 Suzanne Muchnic, “Prized 18th century screens join LACMA’s Japanese art collection,” Los Angeles Times, accessed August 8, 2019, https://www.latimes. com/entertainment/arts/la-xpm-2013-jan-17-la-et-cm-8th-century-screens-lacma- The art of painted folding screens, or byōbu, was collection-20130117-story.html. Maruyama Ōkyo, Cranes, 1772, Edo period (1772–1780), pair of six-panel screens; ink, color, and gold leaf on paper, .1-.2) mount: 67 1/4 × 137 3/4 × 3/4 in. (170.82 × 349.89 × 1.91 cm) each, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Camilla Chandler Frost in honor of Robert T. Singer (M.2011.106.1-.2), photo © Museum Associates/LACMA Maruyama Ōkyo, Cranes, 1772, Edo period (1772–1780), pair of six-panel screens; ink, color, and gold leaf on paper, .1-.2) mount: 67 1/4 × 137 3/4 × 3/4 in.