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!
江戸近郊八景之内 小金井橋夕照
Evening Glow at Koganei Border
Artist: Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, Tokyo (Edo)
1797–1858 Tokyo (Edo))
Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
Date: 1797–1858
Culture: Japan
Medium: Polychrome woodblock print; ink and color on paper
Dimensions: 9 7/8 x 14 1/4 in. (25.1 x 36.2 cm)
Classification: Prints
I assume these are cherry trees and it’s interesting that the tops of the trees, where there are no blossoms, look ripped and torn. Once all the blossoms come out, everything should loom like a soft, peaceful pink cloud.
I agree with Derek’s comment. The fresh, young cherry blosssoms contrast starkly with the torn and aged tree trunks. I also see Mout Fuji in the background, snow covered.
I was thinking about what someone wrote for either last week’s picture or the week before that, of the significance of diagonal lines in traditional Japanese art, as opposed to vertical and horizonal lines that dominate a lot of Western art. In this painting here, the canal makes a strong diagonal statement, as does the bridge as well as the slopes of Mt. Fuji. And none of the trees are strictly vertical, they wend their way this way and that as the rise up.
I see two humans on the far side of the canal. One is riding a horse and the horse not only has the human on its back but some large bags. The other human is also carrying a large load. Horse and human: both pack animals. On the near side of the canal, there’s a raised platform that I assume is for elderly men to sit on, smoking pipes, looking at what’s going on around them, and carrying out conversations. Approaching them is a woman wearing those sandals that have two vertical slats of wood so that she is taller and has to probably walk more carefully. It seems she is carrying something – perhaps some tea or sake that she’s taking to the men on the platform.