Museum exterior.
After all the work of the past few weeks, there are a few exhibitions around Tokyo that I want to catch up on, so on Wednesday I started into doing just that by heading to the Bridgestone Museum of Art to see Chinese Style Dresses. The exhibition included paintings of women dressed in Chinese style clothing, as produced by Japanese artists between 1910 and 1940. This is a fascinating group of artworks that address issues of gender, colonialism, orientalism, power, and fashion in what was a tumultuous time in Asia. The Taisho period saw a boom of interest in things Chinese, much of which was linked to the new Japanese colonies of Taiwan and Manchuria. Seeing these fascinating paintings together in two large galleries, and accompanied by a small showing of historic costumes was truly a treat.
Gallery one. Kume Tamijuro's Chinese Dance from 1920 is visible at the left. This painting is my new obsession.
Gallery two- historic costume juxtaposed with the paintings.
The catalogue!
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