Aug. 22nd, 2009

gurdymonkey: (pretties)
Missed opportunity? I stand up to exit the BART train at Civic Center and this rather attractive man moves up beside me waiting for the doors to open, brandishes a pink plastic bag and crows "Farmer's Market!" at me with a big grin. Then he was gone. (Not fair. My one shot at a meet-cute and I just wasn't fast enough. Gah, he's probably some sort of psycho vegetable fetishist who runs around the BART system brandishing his bag of free range organic lima beans at unsuspecting passersby in an interminable existential non sequitur.)

So I trundled up the escalator out into the raw greyness, past a row of homeless people, at least one of whom can afford pot, and around the corner to the museum entrance. I passed the line of General Admission people lined up at the center door to have their bags checked, waved my membership card (was that EVER a worthwhile investment!) and open handbag at the guard at the left hand door and checked in at the desk for my admission sticker.

First stop, "Lords of the Samurai" again, because they did rotate some different art in since I last saw it. Loved the 19th c. portrait of Hosokawa Masu looking all aristocratic in her elegant kosode and painted eyebrows. Of course no photography is allowed in the special exhibition, so I took my dear sweet time peering at the embroidery on the undersides of kote that 98% of the rest of the visitors were missing. 

I banged my head on at least one case because they'd put an early 17th century kataginu kamishimo in the same case as a Noh kariginu facing each other to maximize how many things they could show and of course resulting in being only able to see one side of each piece well. I wanted to see whether the kataginu was boned or simply had stitched down pleats. I feel so deprived when the interesting side of a garment is where you can't see it!!!!



Museum Curator Sadism, Exhibit A, an Edo period jinbaori currently on display up on the 2nd floor (where I could photograph it.) I had to back up against a wall beside the case to take the photo at far left. That's a wool on wool applique. On the back. As in FACING THE WALL. (Bastards. So not fair. )

Oh, back to that kataginu kamishimo. It's ramie (she typed, exhibition catalogue on her knees) in resist dyed indigo katazome with a tiny pattern of white oblong speckles on a blue ground. The Hosokawa mon is on each shoulder in front and the center back. The shoulders are pleated and sewn down, but not - as far as I could tell - boned. The hakama have a koshi-ita (back board), but it's maybe two inches wide, compared with some of the more modern ones I see. It was owned by Hosokawa Tadadoshi, which dates it to before 1641 when he died. For whatever that's worth - it's out of SCA period, but not by all that much. The kariginu was in a plummy purple ro silk so fine you can probably read through it. Third object on the first row in this gallery.   And my heart cries "Documentation be damned, DO IT!" each time I see this tsuba. That motif needs to be in gold on that green Thai silk. I could make it look period, I know I could.... Must work up some sketches.....

They had also rotated items up on the 2nd floor. (This is why the annual membership is worth having - they put different items in rotation every few months, to maximize use of exhibit space and minimize light damage to fragile paintings and textiles.) I about swooned when I came around a corner and saw the pair of breathtaking, decidedly non-traditional screens by 20th century painter Okochi Yako.. There was also a pair of screens from  c. 1640 depicting the sport of dog chasing, with dozens of wonderful figures of spectators that I managed to get some detail photos of, the jinbaori above, another Noh kariginu in blue and gold, and another pair of early 17th century screens of spirited horses tied in their stalls. I made the loop through the Korean and Chinese galleries on 2 to see if anything caught my eye, cut through Samsung Hall which for once had nothing going on inside it, and enjoyed some of the ceramics on display around the grand staircase, including a Ming dynasty Guanyin (Kannon to the Japanese, or Avalokitesvara in Sanskrit, the bodhisattva of compassion and mercy) that'll give any Renaissance Madonna a run for her money.


More pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/70104978@N00/sets/72157621990102075/

I succumbed to temptation in the museum shop and picked up a CD called Gagaku and Beyond by Tokyo Gakuso under Tadaaki Ono. I like gagaku (classical Japanese court music), but it's the one thing that made Gaius come flying out of the inner sanctum crying "My GOD, what ARE you listening to now?" the first time I played some on my computer at the old Oakland apartment. Do a search on "gagaku" at Youtube and you'll either love it or wonder what they are doing to those poor barnyard animals.

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