Clark Art Institute

150 years of Woodblock images

I spent a sleeting winter afternoon walking through Japanese Impressions at the Clark Art Institute. Here’s a glimpse of colors, subjects and styles in these woodblock prints as they change over time. You can find the full feature story here, and my thoughts here, on these artists across a century and a half.

Utagawa Hiroshige, Tekoma Shrine, 1857, from 100 Views of Edo. Courtesy of the Clark Art Institute
Yoshida Hiroshi, Sacred Bridge. Courtesy of the Clark Art Institute
Torii Kotondo, Girl Applying Makeup, 1929. Courtesy of the Clark Art Institute
Hashimoto Okiie, Young Girl with Iris, 1952. Image courtesy of the Clark Art Institute
Kawase Hasui, Territory of Amakusa. Courtesy of the Clark Art Institute
Kawase Hasui, Tennoji Temple. Image courtesy of Clark Art Institute
Saito, Gion in Kyoto

 

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Clark opens Manton Center

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She stands in profile with one arm lifted, pointing toward his forehead, and he closes his eyes against the light. These are not the well-known poker faces of daguerrotypes. Their expressions are fluent, feeling, and the light touches their skin like the glow in a pre-Raphaelite painting. They look alive. Julia Margaret Cameron’s portraits surprised her…

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Stone Hill — Philosophy made physical

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He lives at the southern end of Stone Hill. On a late summer afternoon he walked around his garden. On the slope above him, the meadow grew hip-high and protected the wetland that sent a stream across his lawn. Here he channels the water into ponds and keeps the grass cut around natural marble intrusions…

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Bodies bared at the Clark Art Institute

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A courtesan without a name looks levelly along her shoulder. Saint Sebastian leans against a tree trunk and gazes at the sky. Hercules shoulders his club, and Susannah cups up water from a pool. And they are almost as bare as the day they were born. These paintings once hung in the palaces of the…

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Clark Art Institute’s ‘Eye for Excellence’

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Daphnis and Chloe lean casually together as he speaks into her ear. Around the corner a bat-winged Spaniard rides a wildcat in the night, and beyond a traveler in Egypt stands like a fragment of shadow outside the step pyramid at Sakkarah. Six degrees from the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown can reach around the…

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