FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Transcending the Floating World:
Common pleasures in ukiyo-e, 1800 – 1860s
On Display at Hurst Gallery
November 17, 2006 through January 13, 2007
Japanese ukiyo-e (pictures of the “floating world”) typically are characterized by idealized images of beautiful women (bijin), charismatic actors from the Kabuki stage, and picturesque views of famous sights and places. For the average person in Japanese society during the late Edo Period (1750 – 1867), these pictures, in the form of woodblock prints, constituted an obtainable and inexpensive way to transport one’s self for a brief moment to an exotic experience beyond the daily routine.
Hurst Gallery’s current exhibition, however, has a special focus. Transcending the Floating World: Common pleasures in ukiyo-e, 1800 – 1860s presents designs that depict glamorized individuals in ordinary pastimes and pursuits. The featured designs depict bijin and actors engaged in common activities: in bed with their children, playing with their pets, in acts of personal grooming, admiring a snowman, struggling against inclement weather, and others.
Rather than idealized celebrities, the subjects in this exhibition are presented in a sympathetic mode with which ordinary viewers can personally identify. These images are remarkable because they present their elite subjects in activities and states of mind that transcend their status and surroundings, elements more frequently represented by theatrics and affectation on a grand scale.
The exhibition also includes examples in which art itself is transformed within the image. One such example depicts a young woman enthralled by an image of the actor, Iwai Hanshiro V, who comes alive before her gaze. Another represents Dainagon Yukinari’s daughter, an artist, whose drawing of a butterfly is so lifelike that her cat pounces upon it.
The exhibition includes works Kikugawa Eizan (1787 – 1867), Tsunoda Kunisada (1786 – 1864), Utagawa Toyokuni (1769 – 1825), Ando Hiroshige (1797 – 1858), and Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797 – 1861), among other artists of the mid-19th century.
Transcending the Floating World presents an opportunity for collectors of varying tastes, interests, and means to acquire genuine woodblock prints from this period of fluorescence and creativity. Prices range from under one hundred to several thousand dollars, and all works are identified and unconditionally guaranteed to be as represented. The exhibition may also be viewed in its entirety on at HurstGallery.com, starting Saturday, November 18.
Located in Harvard Square, Hurst Gallery has been dealing in art and artifacts of the Pacific, Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the ancient world for over twenty-five years. Please contact the gallery or visit our website for information regarding recent acquisitions and upcoming special exhibitions.
Hurst Gallery, 53 Mount Auburn St. Cambridge, MA 02138 tel. 617.491.6888