Back Issue - 2 December 2019 -
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image image The Art of "Working with What's There": Architect Yasushi Horibe
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Alice Gordenker
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In Japanese cuisine, a good chef strives to present the natural goodness of ingredients and doesn't distract the diner with unnecessary flourishes. The same approach can be applied to design, according to architect Yasushi Horibe, who begins every new project by carefully considering the site. He describes his aim in doing so as aru mono o ikasu, or to "work with what's there." more...

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image image Bursts of Color, Shades of Black: Nihonga at the Yamatane Museum
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J.M. Hammond
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Color helps us navigate and understand our world. Colors, of course, can take on different meanings, and importance, in different cultures. That much we all know, but we far too often assume that the way people perceive and classify color is relatively stable across cultures. Actually, how color is conceived can vary in subtle ways, and, in one culture, can be classified in subtle shades unfamiliar elsewhere. One example is how what is known elsewhere as "green" has traditionally been considered, in Japan, a shade of blue rather than an independent color. For instance, the traffic light in the color we normally call green is called "blue" here. more...

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image image Landscapes Without and Within: The Hirayama Ikuo Silk Road Museum
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Alan Gleason
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Ikuo Hirayama (1930-2009) is one of the big names of postwar Nihonga. Largely a traditionalist when it came to materials and compositional style, he was at the same time a maverick in his choice of subject matter, which ranged from scenes of desert caravans in Central Asia to the flames that engulfed Hiroshima after the atomic bombing, of which he was a survivor. That traumatic experience at age 15 impacted his subsequent career as an artist in more ways than one. Later in life, however, he enjoyed fame and financial success, garnering numerous accolades and opening two museums in different parts of the country to share his work with the public. more...

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Recent Articles
FOCUS
The Art of "Working with What's There": Architect Yasushi Horibe
Alice Gordenker
2 December 2019
FOCUS
Bursts of Color, Shades of Black: Nihonga at the Yamatane Museum
J.M. Hammond
2 December 2019
HERE/THERE
Landscapes Without and Within: The Hirayama Ikuo Silk Road Museum
Alan Gleason
2 December 2019
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HERE/THERE
Asphalt Impressionism: Naoki Tomita at the Maho Kubota Gallery
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Legendary Chair Craftsman, Shigeki Miyamoto
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