Celebrating the culture of Japan

AMHERST, Mass. (Mass Appeal) - From origami, to paper cranes, to watercolor paintings of dragons and cherry blossoms, Japanese artwork is beautiful. To tell us more about it is Professor Samuel Morse, professor of Japanese art at Amherst College.

Japanese culture has a great sensitivity towards nature. If we look at Japanese art, we can see pictures and prints that show the seasons. That show things that we are familiar with in Japan such as the cherry blossoms and prints such as the great wave that show water and the power of nature as well.

Japanese art can be monochromatic. Japanese art can be brightly colored. I think it is hard to pin Japanese art down in terms of one set of colors or one set of formats. I think in terms of utensils we are all familiar with the tea ceremony, ritualized drinking of tea as a means for people to communicate with one another. Very frequently the bowls that are used in the tea ceremony are far less formal than we think of elegant works of ceramics.

Japanese art is characterized by interest in a kind of purity aleaned. Interest in fidelity to the material and we can see and you the shrine, that sense of similar blessty and I think that it has a sense of resilience. A building built in 680. It is a building that has been rebuilt every 20 years since the very end of the 7th century. It is a building on the one hand is both very, very old. Because it is forms, dates back to that long ago. It is also a building that is very, very new in the sense of the resilient and the idea of resurrecting from something old, I think, is embodied in this structure.

A buddhist sculpture. It is a sculpture of aididty, lord of western paradise. I think this image which was completed in 1053 reflects interest in elegance, reflects interest in a sense of sophistication in Japanese art that is also characteristic of their artistic tradition.

A long narrative scroll, painting that one would unroll. A picture in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Not only does the George Walter Smith museum in Springfield have a terrific collection, but the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has a terrific collection as well.

A battle that took place in 1160 and I think that the Japanese do fire very, very well. Makes this wonderfully, dramatic quality of the fire and we see the two opposing groups who are fighting against one another.

It reminds me of the dragon. They always have the dragons in their paintings and artwork. It reminds me of that.

An ink landscape, you see a mountain in the background. You see a few trees that are growing on a cliff. If you look down at the bottom, you see two figures in a little boat. Instead of rowing away, probably from having a meal or possibly having a drink at the villa, at the bottom. You can look at this picture and you can see every single brush stroke. You get a sense how the picture was put together. That directness is also something that is very characteristic of the japanese artistic tradition.

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