Tag - surrealism

 
 

SURREALISM

Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 5, 2019
Gentaro Komaki: A pioneer of surrealism
Gentaro Komaki (1906-89), the son of a Kyoto Prefecture silk crepe wholesaler, lived a decadent youth of literature and philosophy, until seeing the work of Max Ernst and Yves Tanguy inspired to pursue surrealist art.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 2, 2017
Yasunari Kawabata's surrealist window on the world
Opening with one of the most famous lines in Japanese literature — "Emerging from the long border tunnel, they entered snow country," shifting us at speed from the darkness of the tunnel into the bright light of the snow — Yasunari Kawabata's novel "Snow Country" tells of a city-dwelling, worldly aesthete Shimamura who travels to an onsen (hot springs) retreat in winter and resumes his casual affair with Komako, a beautiful young "mountain geisha," a rustic panderer to male desire.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 16, 2016
Salvador Dali: a life less ordinary
The early literary surrealists of the mid-1920s were skeptical of any visual possibility. Their aim — to fuse art with life, reality and dreams — was to be realized through the immediacy of writing. Painting, by contrast, was a laborious, indirect expression mediated by style and technique. Andre Breton, the leader, central theorist and "pope" of surrealism, held out for a visual effectuation. It arrived with Salvador Dali (1904-89), whose entire career — from painter and sculptor to filmmaker, book illustrator, perfumer, jeweler and media celebrity — is currently being explored at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 28, 2016
'Salvador Dali'
July 1-Sept. 4
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 6, 2014
The all-star cast of Kunsthaus Zurich
Switzerland is an "island" in a "sea" of Europe. From its elevated Alpine position in the heart of Western Europe, it figuratively looks down on the main European cultural heartlands of Italy, France and Germany, the perfect place for a wide-ranging, cosmopolitan collection of European art — which is just what the Kunsthaus Zurich has managed to build up over the years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 6, 2014
'100th Anniversary of the Birth: Oyamada Jiro'
This year marks the 100th since the birth of Surrealist artist Jiro Oyamada, who is known for his dark, socially conscious and despairing themes that were likely influenced by his life experiences.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 31, 2013
Understanding the fun side of Surrealism
Part of the reason for the success of Surrealism in the 1920s and '30s was its sexual dimension. This element, covered over by a veneer of respectable intellectualism, had a powerful attraction at a time when sexuality was much more circumscribed by social morality than it is today. Although many Surrealist artworks are not sexual, one of the things that defined the movement was its general atmosphere of eroticism and amoral liberation.

Longform

Historically, kabuki was considered the entertainment of the merchant and peasant classes, a far cry from how it is regarded today.
For Japan's oldest kabuki theater, the show must go on