APR 2012

VOLUME 43 - NUMBER 3

The focus of our April issue is the Edo period Japanese artist Ito Jakuchu and recent scholarship on his oeuvre. Kobayashi Tadashi, Ota Aya, Yukio Lippit and Melinda Takeuchi explore aspects of Jakuchu's life and work, including an overview of his stylistic development; discoveries following the six-year-long conservation of Colorful Realm of Living Beings (Doshoku sai-e), a set of thirty scrolls in the collection of The Imperial Household Agency of Japan; and notions of realism in 18th century Japan through an investigation of Jakuchu’s observations of the natural world.

Tsuji Nobuo and Joe Price discuss the resurgence of interest in the artist’s work and single out the paintings that have the greatest personal significance for them. Colorful Realm is being shown in its entirety in the US for the first time this spring, in the exhibition ‘Colorful Realm: Japanese Bird-and-Flower Paintings by Ito Jakuchu (1716-1800)’ at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, marking the centenary of the city’s Cherry Blossom Festival.

In other features, Adele Schlombs and Helmut Neumann pay tribute, respectively, to Roger Goepper and Augusto Gansser. Rose Kerr reviews Provenance by Roy Davids and Dominic Jellinek, while Colin Mackenzie guides us around the newly renovated galleries at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. In our commentary, John Sanday reports on the state of the painting conservation at Thubchen Gompa in Mustang.

FEATURES
Colin Mackenzie: Chinese Galleries Reopen at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Melinda Takeuchi. Birds of a Feather: Jakuchu, Natural Science and the Artistic Imagination
Ota Aya and Yukio Lippit. 'Colorful Realm': An Exhibition Celebrating the Centennial Anniversary of the Cherry Blossom Festival
Kobayashi Tadashi. Ito Jakuchu: A Man Rejoicing in Painting
PREVIEWS & REVIEWS
Rose Kerr. Book Review: Provenance: Collectors, Dealers & Scholars in the Field of Chinese Ceramics in Britain & America by Roy Davids & Dominic Jellinek, Roy Davids, 2011
INTERVIEWS
In Conversation with Joe Price and Tsuji Nobuo
NEWS
Helmut Neumann. Obituary: Augusto Gansser (1910-2012)
Adele Schlombs. Obituary: Roger Goepper (1925-2011)
COMMENTARY
John Sanday. Commentary: The Wall Paintings of Thubchen Lo Manthang, Upper Mustang: In Defence of History