“Feathered Ink” is a new exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art which “explores how Japanese artists have experimented over several centuries with different brush techniques in their depictions of avian subjects,” and showcases three galleries of hanging scroll paintings, folding screens, ceramics, and printed books. In Japan,…
This fabulous frog racking up likes and retweets on Twitter can be found amongst the over 100 species of flora and 50 species of fauna in a huge scroll painting by Ito Jakuchu called “Saichufu” (also known in English as “Compendium of Vegetables and Insects”). Here is a detail of the…
This is from a series of nine woodcuts depicting humorous scenes of anthropomorphic goldfish, frogs, and turtles. This particular piece is inspired by the pun of its title, playing off the the fact that in Japanese niwaka ame (にわか あめ) means “shower” and amenbo (アメンボ) means “water striders” — hence,…
It’s on my to-do list to try to identify all the different species scurrying around here. For now, I’ll just note that there is an imposter crustacean in the mix — Horseshoe Crabs (family Limulidae) aren’t true crabs, and aren’t even crustaceans. 😉 (They’re chelicerates, a whole different subphylum of arthropods…
