Living in densely populated cities, we survive by ignoring the crowd, by refusing to acknowledge those forced into physical proximity with us. The artist, however, is excluded from this luxury. He is expected to be aware of everything around him, including the seething mass ...

Anyone writing about Art Nouveau here in Japan is expected to deferentially mention the strong Japanese influences on this late 19th-century art and design movement. Indeed, the exhibition now at Shibuya’s Bunkamura of furniture and glassware from the important French Art Nouveau center of ...

There used to be a time when the Brits made all the heavy rock, while the Yanks turned out winsome, countryish pop-rock. Now all the heavy stuff comes from the States, while the U.K. is reduced to turning out the slow-fi, introspective rock typified ...

According to a song popular during World War l, every cloud has a silver lining. In the case of that exercise in mechanized butchery, the silver lining may have been the improvement in women’s social position. With so many men going off to fight ...

The latest in a long line of events held as part of Italy Year in Japan is a show of porcelain by Richard-Ginori, an Italian company that has been molding, glazing and firing since 1735. A 1907 reproduction of a piece in a service ...

LONDON — Anybody turning up at London’s Hyde Park to walk their dog on the morning of Saturday, May 19, could have been forgiven for thinking they’d wandered into some kind of space and time warp. Instead of a few squirrels and strollers enjoying ...

The keynote of the ongoing exhibition at the Yasuda Kasai Museum in Shinjuku is the brilliance and vividness of color. “Lady in a Yellow Straw Hat” by Alexel von Jawlensky (1910), oil on cardboard Featuring painters associated with Fauvism and German Expressionism, the show ...

The most astounding piece in the ongoing exhibition of Chinese ceramics, art and objects at Shibuya’s Shoto Museum is the large, partially glazed ceramic camel, expressively molded, that greets visitors as they enter. A ceramic camel (Tang Dynasty, 618-907) A gilded bronze Buddhist statue ...

Film director Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) is perhaps more famous outside Japan than any other of his fellow countrymen. This is partly because his films confirmed the gaijin view of his country as a land of geisha, samurai and warlords, but also because he made ...

With a name like a dubious aphrodisiac jelly, “Exciter,” the latest effort by the ever-boyish Depeche Mode, promises more of the “pervy” lyrics and electronic pop/rock that has seen it sell 50 million albums since the early ’80s. In that time, electronic music has ...

When I first saw the oil paintings of Paris by the Japanese artist, Takanori Oguiss (1901-1986) I was strangely reminded of the neutron bomb, a weapon notorious for its ability to annihilate humans without damaging buildings. “Au Bon Vivant” (1985) by Takanori Oguiss “Fruiterie” ...

When Japan opened up to the West after the Meiji Restoration, it had a lot of catching up to do. Achievements that took hundreds of years to develop in European civilization were transplanted to Japan in a few decades. “Sitting Reiko” (1919) “Road Cut ...