Netsuke: Japanese Art in Miniature at the Fitzwilliam Museum

Small is beautiful

The Fitzwilliam Museum of Cambridge is hosting a small, but noteworthy exhibition of netsuke (Japanese:根付), miniature sculptures invented in 17th-century Japan. These delicately carved objects, often made of ivory or wood, were used as toggles securing pouches called sagemono to kimono' sashes (obi). Some 250 items are on display in the Octagon Gallery on the third floor of this fantastic museum, covering a variety of subjects such as everyday life, myths, legends and tales, animals, and Noh masks. Although the netsukes on display are organized thematically, one case is devoted to unusual material, such as lacquer or pottery.

Eleven items were singled out as the finest in the Museum, and proudly displayed in a case right in the middle of the gallery. One of these, a resting monkey, was chosen – very rightly in my uninformed opinion – to adorn the poster for the exhibition. It is difficult not be fascinated by the perfect purity of the lines and shape, combining with the meticulous details of the eyes and hairs.

I had to go back several times to the exhibition for my sketches; focusing one’s attention on such diminutive and elaborate things is very tiring indeed. I usually find that sketching works of art make me see them better, but this was even truer for the netsuke. In particular I was fascinated by the patterns on the dress of the sculpture of Ono no Tofu, a 10th century calligrapher. When you first set eyes on it you encompass the figure with its hat and an umbrella and fan and the toad at his foot. The clothes are patterned, and soon you distinguish the different patterns for the jacket and the trousers and the hat; the pattern for the jacket, you see, combine complex arabesques and huge floral motives; then you realize that the flowers are finely ribbed, and that the line for the arabesque is not a continuous line, but composed of very short scratches. An almost vertiginous experience…

Be sure to check the Museum’s online exhibition on netsuke. I also heartily recommend catching up on a previous, remarkable exhibition about the influence of Darwin’s ideas on the 19th century visual arts.

Netsuke: Japanese Art in Miniature

Until Sun 30 May 2010

The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Octagon Gallery (Gallery 10)

Ancient Greece at the British Museum

Black-figured amphora with frieze of dancing satyrs and maenads. Athens, 540-510 BC.

Stuck in London for almost three days – it is fortunate that the Eurostar terminal is not located in Reading - I decided would do some tourism. Very conveniently the British Museum had placed itself within walking distance of St Pancras Station.

Taking the tube costs four pounds, and you have to pay to enter a famous cathedral, but in London, all public museums are free. Like, free. The British Museum even offers various workshops and discovery tours of sections of the Museums for free, every day at fixed hours. Apparently you can also borrow art materials to make sketches for a small caution.

Terracotta female figurine with bird-like face and pierced ears.

Cyprus, 1450-1200 BC. Tomb 93, Enkomi.

Pottery crater with bull and egret. Mycenaean 1300-1200 BC, Cyprus.

Given the sheer vastness of the place, in two days I was only able to scratch the surface of the Greek collection (in a manner of speaking), and visit the following rooms:

11Greece: Cycladic Islands

12a Greece: Minoans

12b Greece: Mycenaeans

13 Greece 1050-520 BC

14 Greek vases

15 Athens and Lycia

17 Nereid Monument.

Jug with sprout in the form of a griffin’s head.

Cyclades, 675-650 BC.

Terracotta scent bottle in the form of a squatting man, perhaps a comic actor.
Corinthian, 600-575 BC, Rhodes.

Bronze figure of a running satyr. Greek, 6th century BC.

Vase. Athena with a symbol of naval victory. 5th century BC.

 Nereid Monument 390 – 380 BC

Vase. Rhapsode. Athens, 490-480 BC, Kleophrades. “Once upon a time in Tyrias”