Resources

Dr. Andrea Horbinski, of the UC Berkeley History-Social Science Project, discusses Japan and its geography at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco as part of the Medieval Japan Teacher Institute.

Dr. Andrea Horbinski of the UC Berkeley History-Social Science Project, discusses Japan and an interconnected world at the Medieval Japan Teacher Institute, held at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.

Watch the installation of two monumental Japanese bronze lion sculptures on granite plinths outside the museum’s front entrance on Larkin Street.

Preparators at the Asian Art Museum install a 2100-pound bronze bell for the Bell Ringing Ceremony on December 31. In this annual tradition at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, visitors, led by a Buddhist priest, mark New Year by ringing a 2100-lb., sixteenth-century Japanese bronze bell originally from a temple in Tajima Province in Japan. Now part of the museum’s collection, the bell will be struck 108 times with a large custom-hewn log. According to custom in several Buddhist cultures, this symbolically welcomes the New Year and curbs the 108 mortal desires (bonno) which, according to Buddhist belief, torment humankind.

Inro with map of Japan, 1670-1722. By Shiomi Masanari (Japanese, 1647 – approx. 1722), Lacquered wood with sprinkled metallic powder (maki-e) decoration. Gift of Dr. Joseph Kushner, 2014.6. Photograph © Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.

Artist Hiroshi Sugimoto recently expanded his work to include traditional Japanese performing arts such as bunraku, or puppet theater, through film. Most recently, Sugimoto lent his vision to the arrangement, direction, and stage design of an adaptation of famed bunraku play The Love Suicide at Sonezaki (Sonezaki Shinju), a 1703 work by Chikamatsu Monzaemon. The program begins with a screening of this monumental project, followed by a conversation between the artist and Phantoms of Asia (on view at the Asian Art Museum from May 18–September 2, 2012) guest curator Mami Kataoka.

Melinda Takeuchi, Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and the Department of Art History at Stanford University, discusses the coded meanings behind a woodblock print in the Asian Art Museum’s collection.

Hexagonal kettle (kama) with design of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, by Seishin (Japanese), approx. 1500–1700. Japan; Kyoto. Iron, copper alloys. The Avery Brundage Collection, B69M11.A-.B.

Hawk on oak tree, by Soga Nichokuan (Japanese, active approx. 1624–1658), approx. 1630–1650. Hanging scroll; Ink on paper. The Avery Brundage Collection, B60D18.

Watch Shiho Sasaki, Paintings Conservator at the Asian Art Museum, handle a Japanese hanging scroll for display and storage.