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mdstamper.bsky.social
菊の香り (The Fragrance of Chrysanthemums) by 梶田半古 (Kajita Hanko) - Ink and color on paper / 1905 - Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art (Washington DC) #WomenInArt #art #JapaneseArt #artText #AsianArt #菊 #KajitaHanko #梶田半古 #JapaneseArtist #口絵 #浮世絵 #artwork #NationalMuseumofAsianArt #Smithsonian
This refined 口絵 (kuchi-e, frontispiece illustration) accompanied an installment of 白菊 Shiragiku (“White Chrysanthemum”), a serialized novel by 大越大六 (Ōgoshi Dairoku) published in 文芸倶楽部 (Bungei Kurabu), one of the most popular literary magazines of Meiji Japan (明治時代). The novel unfolds with the intricacy of a Kabuki drama: while recuperating at a spa, the heroine discovers that the blind masseuse attending her is, in fact, her father. This revelation adds layers of hidden identity, family rupture, and reconciliation beneath the surface of refined social life. Prominent Japanese painter and illustrator Kajita Hanko (梶田半古) presents the young Japanese woman reclining gracefully in profile, sniffing a single chrysanthemum as if lost in thought. She wears an elegant kimono patterned with soft floral motifs, its folds cascading in delicate lines. Her hair is styled in a formal coiffure that signals her refinement and social position. She sits surrounded by yellow flowers, which enhances her luminous face in an atmosphere of quiet drama and longing. Kajita specialized in blending the aesthetic legacy of 浮世絵 (ukiyo-e) with modern demands of mass publishing. His elegant depiction of the heroine embodies both decorum and emotional tension. Though presented as a woman of propriety and social standing, she is rendered with the lightly erotic sentiment that earlier woodblock traditions often infused into images of female beauty. The work thus straddles two worlds: the modern literary culture of serialized fiction and the enduring pictorial conventions of the “floating world.” "The Fragrance of Chrysanthemums" captures the dual power of kuchi-e prints. They enticed readers with an immediate visual allure while setting the emotional tone of the story. Here, Hanko’s mastery lies in his ability to distill a dramatic revelation like family ties, hidden past, and the heroine’s inner struggle, into a single, contemplative image.
September 22, 2025 at 11:37 PM
mdstamper.bsky.social
The Princess from the Land of Porcelain (La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine) by James McNeill Whistler (American) - Oil on canvas / 1863-1865 - National Museum of Asian Art (Washington DC) #WomenInArt #ArtText #JamesMcNeillWhistler #Whistler #womensart #art #orientalism #NationalMuseumofAsianArt
At the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington DC (part of the National Museum of Asian Art), the Peacock Room (officially Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room) has captivated visitors since its opening in 1923. Originally designed by American artist James McNeill Whistler to showcase the Chinese blue-and-white porcelain collection of British shipping magnate Frederick Leyland, the room marries its avian motif with a striking use of color inspired by the arts of East Asia. The room is an immersive work of art full of controversy around its creation including the room's travels from London to Detroit to Washington, DC. This large painting, which prominently hangs over the mantel in the Peacock Room, was part of a series of costume pictures undertaken by Whistler in the mid-1860s in which non-Asian models appear in Asian dress, surrounded by Chinese and Japanese objects from Whistler's own collections. The "princess" was Christina Spartali, of Greek descent and sister of Pre-Raphaelite artist Marie Spartali Stillman. Rendered in an impressionistic manner, she is dressed in a Japanese-style kimono and surrounded by objects that suggest an imaginary "land of porcelain" including a rug, Japanese folding screen, and a large decorative Chinese-style porcelain vase. She holds a hand fan and looks ahead "wistfully." When the portrait was completed, Spartali's father refused to purchase it. Instead of a portrait, the painting demonstrated a different ideal of beauty, one derived from Japanese ukiyo-e prints and elongated figures from Chinese porcelain. Whistler never visited Asia, and his appropriation of Japanese and Chinese objects was likely to evoke the temporal and spatial distance of a far off realm. Years before the Peacock Room was ever conceived, Leyland bought this painting. After his death in 1892, it was purchased by Glasgow collector William Burrell, who subsequently sold it to American Industrialist Charles Lang Freer in 1903, the year of Whistler's death.
May 28, 2025 at 5:30 PM
mdstamper.bsky.social
“Caprice in Purple and Gold: The Golden Screen” by James McNeill Whistler (American) - Oil on wood / 1864 - National Museum of Asian Art (Washington, D.C.) #womeninart #japonisme #art #oilpainting #womensart #JamesMcNeillWhistler #Whistler #NationalMuseumofAsianArt #NMAA #AmericanArtist #ArtText
In England during the mid-1860s, American artist James McNeill Whistler undertook a series of works in which recognizably British models in exotic costumes are depicted as Japanese courtesans surrounded by objects from the artist’s personal collection of Asian art. In “Caprice in Purple and Gold,” Whistler presents Joanna Hiffernan, an Irish model, in the guise of a Japanese lady wearing richly embroidered silks, contemplating a woodblock print from Utagawa Hiroshige’s Views of the Sixty-odd Provinces, an iconic series of meisho-e, or images of notable places. Decorative objects from both Japan and China surround her, including a large gold Japanese folding screen. When Charles Lang Freer first saw this painting in 1902, he had acquired an impressive collection of Japanese prints and paintings as well as hundreds of works by Whistler. Freer declared that Caprice was “one of the most perfect things in composition and coloring in the whole range of Mr. Whistler’s art.” The painting is an early example of Japonisme, a term coined by the French art critic Philippe Burty in 1872. It refers to the fashion for Japanese art in the West and the Japanese influence on Western art and design following the opening of formerly isolated Japan to world trade in 1853. James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American painter in oils and watercolor, and printmaker, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake.” His signature for his paintings took the shape of a stylized butterfly with an added long stinger for a tail. The symbol combined both aspects of his personality: his art is marked by a subtle delicacy, while his public persona was combative. He found a parallel between painting and music, and entitled many of his paintings "arrangements", "harmonies", and "nocturnes", emphasizing the primacy of tonal harmony.
May 5, 2025 at 3:07 AM
bellarocca3.bsky.social
Die Prinzessin aus dem Land des Porzellans (La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine) von James McNeill Whistler (Amerikaner) – Öl auf Leinwand / 1863–1865 – National Museum of Asian Art (Washington DC) #WomenInArt #ArtText #JamesMcNeillWhistler #Whistler #womensart #art #NationalMuseumofAsianArt
mdstamper.bsky.social Michael @mdstamper.bsky.social · May 28
The Princess from the Land of Porcelain (La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine) by James McNeill Whistler (American) - Oil on canvas / 1863-1865 - National Museum of Asian Art (Washington DC) #WomenInArt #ArtText #JamesMcNeillWhistler #Whistler #womensart #art #orientalism #NationalMuseumofAsianArt
At the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington DC (part of the National Museum of Asian Art), the Peacock Room (officially Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room) has captivated visitors since its opening in 1923. Originally designed by American artist James McNeill Whistler to showcase the Chinese blue-and-white porcelain collection of British shipping magnate Frederick Leyland, the room marries its avian motif with a striking use of color inspired by the arts of East Asia. The room is an immersive work of art full of controversy around its creation including the room's travels from London to Detroit to Washington, DC. This large painting, which prominently hangs over the mantel in the Peacock Room, was part of a series of costume pictures undertaken by Whistler in the mid-1860s in which non-Asian models appear in Asian dress, surrounded by Chinese and Japanese objects from Whistler's own collections. The "princess" was Christina Spartali, of Greek descent and sister of Pre-Raphaelite artist Marie Spartali Stillman. Rendered in an impressionistic manner, she is dressed in a Japanese-style kimono and surrounded by objects that suggest an imaginary "land of porcelain" including a rug, Japanese folding screen, and a large decorative Chinese-style porcelain vase. She holds a hand fan and looks ahead "wistfully." When the portrait was completed, Spartali's father refused to purchase it. Instead of a portrait, the painting demonstrated a different ideal of beauty, one derived from Japanese ukiyo-e prints and elongated figures from Chinese porcelain. Whistler never visited Asia, and his appropriation of Japanese and Chinese objects was likely to evoke the temporal and spatial distance of a far off realm. Years before the Peacock Room was ever conceived, Leyland bought this painting. After his death in 1892, it was purchased by Glasgow collector William Burrell, who subsequently sold it to American Industrialist Charles Lang Freer in 1903, the year of Whistler's death.
May 28, 2025 at 9:26 PM
sbalaghi.bsky.social
Don't miss this fantastic documentary, A Revolution on Canvas, about Iranian-American artist Nicky Nodjoumi. Filmmakers Sara Nodjoumi & Till Schauder will join Nicky Nodjoumi at the free screening Sunday October 15 at the @nationalmuseumofasianart at the @smithsonian.
October 12, 2023 at 1:39 AM
kevdudeula.bsky.social
#Smithsonian #WashingtonDC #NationalMall #NationalMuseumOfAfricanArt #NationalMuseumOfTheAmericanIndian #NationalMuseumOfAsianArt #SmithsonianCastle #Arts&IndustriesBuilding #HirshhornMuseum #SDilleyRipleyCenter

www.the-independent.com/news/world/a...
Smithsonian shut down several museums in DC for unexplained ‘mechanical issue’
The Smithsonian has not revealed what caused the mechanical issue or how long the closures are expected to last
www.the-independent.com
August 6, 2026 at 3:03 PM
indiawest.bsky.social
Smithsonian To Return Indian Bronzes Of Antiquity Taken From Tamil Nadu

Full Story: indiawest.com/smithsonian-...

#Smithsonian #NationalMuseumOfAsianArt #TamilNaduBronzes #CulturalRepatriation #IndianHeritage #TempleArtifacts #ShivaNataraja #Somaskanda #Sundarar
Smithsonian To Return Indian Bronzes Of Antiquity Taken From Tamil Nadu - IndiaWest News
Smithsonian To Return Indian Bronzes Of Antiquity Taken From Tamil Nadu.
indiawest.com
March 30, 2026 at 1:38 PM