Mana's Beautiful World is Forever

Mana's Beautiful World is Forever

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Sakura Viewing in the Tokyo National Museum

 
 So how does one view sakura inside a building? The Tokyo National Museum did it by having a number of ukiyo-e and other items that were sakura related. The trick was finding them in the vast buildings.

While many people were taking numerous photographs, I spent most of my time viewing. I do have a couple pieces to share. This is Famous Places of Edo and Murasaki's Genji: Cherry Blossom Viewing at Gotenyama as an allusion to "The Festival of the Cherry Blossoms". The artist was Utawaga Hiroshige, considered the last great master of ukiyo-e

 Another Utawaga Hiroshige piece, Double Cherry Blossoms. I wish my photo did this justice, but the museum is pretty dark inside of course.

A more dramatic piece, Comparisons of True Courage: Kiyohime by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, dated 1856. You may wonder why he has the same last name as Hiroshige. It is because they both were trained as part of the Utagawa school and thus took that name, as other artists trained there did.

Kiyohime has turned into a dragon and is hiding in the bell but the priest who turned away from his love for her is cowering in fear at the sight of the dragon.

Last is part of a screen which has scenes from the Tales of Genji, by Kano (Seisen'in) Osanobu. This as are the ukiyo-e are all from the Edo era. Many of the sakura marked pieces were from that time. Just to note, I went with how the museum had the artist names on the name plates.

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