Tacoma Art Museum Docents Blog TAM Docents Blog: Sense of Place update

Just wanted you to know that the final rotation of Japanese prints are now up in Sense of Place. Didn’t want you to be caught by surprise. The rotation consists of two prints and label copy is below.

Artist unknown

Monkeys in the Yoshino Mountains, 1836

Woodblock print

Gift of Mrs. James W. Lyon

This beautiful example of surimono provides a sense of place in time. Surimono were created in small numbers to note a special occasion and often incorporated elaborate and elegant printing techniques such as the metal pigments seen here. This surimono conveys a New Year’s greeting. The monkeys cavorting at the top of the waterfall symbolize the year 1836—a year of the monkey in the Chinese zodiac—while courtiers play instruments below.

Utagawa Kuninaga (Japan, died 1829)

Scene from Act VIII from Tales of the Forty-seven Samurai [Chusingura], 1810s

Woodblock print

Gift of Mrs. James W. Lyon

This depiction of Mt. Fuji represents a moment from the Tales of the Forty-seven Samurai, and reveals how the iconic mountain immediately locates the scene. Multi-colored woodblock prints developed in Japan in the second half of the 1700s, and the antiquity of this print is evident in the use of muted, natural dyes now slightly faded.