A SymposiumDECEMBER 7–8, 2018

The 2018 Mildred Schnitzer Memorial Lecture in Asian Art

THE MILDRED SCHNITZER MEMORIAL LECTURE SERIES

The Mildred Schnitzer Asian Art Endowment Fund was established in 1995 to honor the founder of the Portland Art Museum’s Asian Art Council. Mildred Schnitzer (1920–1999) was one of this community’s most passionate advocates for a greater understanding of Asian art and culture. The fund allows the Museum to bring distinguished speakers from around the world to Portland to share their knowledge and insights.

The fund was created and has been sustained by contributions from Schnitzer’s daughters and friends, as well as members of the Asian Art Council. Contributions to the fund are welcome.

SPONSORS

The Mildred Schnitzer Asian Art Endowment Fund

Bonhams

The Donald Jenkins Visiting Scholar Fund

The Metropolitan Center for Far Eastern Art Studies

SYMPOSIUM REGISTRATION:Those who have not registered in advance online will be able to register for the symposium at any time at either of the two Museum entrances. Symposium badges can be picked up any time from Thursday, December 6, onwards.

EXHIBITION VIEWING HOURS:Poetic Imagination in Japanese Art will be accessible during all hours that the Museum is open to the public:

Thursday: 10 a.m.–8 p.m.Friday: 10 a.m.–8 p.m.Saturday: 10 a.m.–5 p.m.*

*Extended hours until 7 p.m. for symposium attendees only

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 20186 p.m. Keynote Lecture: Retired Emperor Goyōzei’s Waka Album and “The Poetry Contest between Different Eras” Dr. Joshua Mostow, University of British Columbia

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8 , 20188:30 a.m. Coffee and Pastries (Stevens Room, next to the Whitsell Auditorium, lower level)

9:30 a.m. Welcome Brian Ferriso, Director, Portland Art Museum

9:45 a.m. Introduction Dr. Maribeth Graybill, Portland Art Museum

10:10 a.m. Form and Line: The Art of Calligraphy Dr. Sadako Ohki, Yale University Art Gallery

11 a.m. Poet Portraits: Why at All? And Why Thus? Dr. Maribeth Graybill, Portland Art Museum

11:45 a.m. Break

11:55 a.m. The World of Brush and Ink Professor Arata Shimao, Gakushūin University

12:40 p.m. Lunch on your own

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8 , 20188:30 a.m. Coffee and Pastries (Stevens Room, next to the Whitsell Auditorium, lower level)

9:30 a.m. Welcome Brian Ferriso, Director, Portland Art Museum

9:45 a.m. Introduction Dr. Maribeth Graybill, Portland Art Museum

10:10 a.m. Form and Line: The Art of Calligraphy Dr. Sadako Ohki, Yale University Art Gallery

11 a.m. Poet Portraits: Why at All? And Why Thus? Dr. Maribeth Graybill, Portland Art Museum

11:45 a.m. Break

11:55 a.m. The World of Brush and Ink Professor Arata Shimao, Gakushūin University

12:40 p.m. Lunch on your own

2:15 p.m. Introduction to the afternoon sessions Dr. Jeannie Kenmotsu, Portland Art Museum

2:25 p.m. “This is not a Pipe!”: The Relation of Artistic Identity and Patterns of Abstraction in Representation in Literati Painting Dr. Paul Berry, formerly of Kansai Gaidai University and University of Washington (presenting in absentia)

3:15 p.m. Modern Vision: Mount Penglai by Kondō Kōichiro Dr. Michiyo Morioka

4 p.m. Break

4:15 p.m. An Ink Painting Perspective on Poetic Imagination Masatomo Kawai, Director, Chiba City Museum of Art

4:35 p.m. A Yamato-e Perspective on Poetic Imagination Professor Shinobu Ikeda, Chiba University

5 p.m. Remarks Cheney Cowles

5:15 p.m. Closing Remarks Dr. Maribeth Graybill, Portland Art Museum

5:30 p.m. Reception

*A short Q&A will follow each talk.

BIOGRAPHIES

PAUL BERRY, PH.D. Formerly Professor at Kansai Gaidai University and University of Washington

Paul Berry, Ph.D., was formerly a professor of art history at Kansai Gaidai University and the University of Washington. His primary research areas are literati painting and modern painting, the latter with an emphasis on the wartime era (1931–1945). Dr. Berry’s recent publications include the scholarly essay “Utsushi and Interpictoriality in Japanese Literati Painting” (日本文人画における間画像性と写し, in the book Utsushi no chikara, ed. Shimao Arata, et. al., Shinbunkaku, 2013) and the exhibition catalogue Literati Modern: Bunjinga from Late Edo to Twentieth-Century Japan (co-authored with Michiyo Morioka, Honolulu Academy of Arts, 2008).

title:“This is not a Pipe!”: The Relation of Artistic Identity and Patterns of Abstraction in Representation in Literati Painting

description:Literati painting (bunjinga) includes many different systems of abstracted representation that transform the depiction of the natural world in order to aesthetically recast feelings and impressions of the world. How did the use of these varied abstract patterns differ from those in traditional painting lineages, and what role did they play in establishing an impression of identity as a bunjin artist?

MARIBETH GRAYBILL, PH.D. The Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Asian Art, Portland Art Museum

After twenty years of teaching Asian art at the University of California at Berkeley and Swarthmore College, Maribeth Graybill moved to a curatorial career, first at the University of Michigan Museum of Art and since 2007 in her current position at the Portland Art Museum. In both curatorial positions she has explored a wide range of topics, with special exhibitions ranging from Persian narrative painting to contemporary Japanese ceramics and women printmakers. As a specialist in Japanese art, she has published on poet portraits (kasen-e) and the work of Yosa Buson. Most recently she edited and co-authored The Artist’s Touch, the Craftsman’s Hand: Three Centuries of Japanese Prints from the Portland Art Museum (2011).

title: Poet Portraits: Why at All? And Why Thus?

description:Japan is unique in world culture in its veneration of poets. Drawing on works in the Poetic Imagination exhibition, this talk will explore the principal formats and contexts in which imaginary portraits of poets were created and consumed.

SHINOBU IKEDA Professor, Division of Historical Studies, Faculty of Letters, Chiba University

Shinobu Ikeda is Professor in the Department of History at Chiba University in Japan. Among her key publications are the monograph The Image of Women in Japanese Painting (日本絵画の女性像 : ジェンダー美術史の視点から, Chikuma Shobō, 1998) and the scholarly essay “Imperial Desire and Female Subjectivity: Umehara Ryūzaburō’s Kunyan Series,” translated by Ignacio Adriasola (Ars Orientalis 47, 2017). Professor Ikeda is currently writing a book on

gender, locality, and empire in the popular arts movements of the modern period (mingei, nōmin bijutsu, and shugei), as well as doing research on the fourteenth-century handscroll painting Illustrated Biography of Priest Kakunyo (Bokie), with a focus on the people and religious spaces of early-period Honganji Temple.

MASATOMO KAWAIProfessor Emeritus, Keiō University and Director, Chiba City Museum of Art

A specialist in ink painting of the Kantō region, Kawai Masatomo is a leading scholar of Japanese art history whose interests and publications span from the Kamakura to the late Edo period and a wide variety of artists and schools. As a scholar deeply interested in art history theory and in the Western reception of Japanese art, he has worked closely with scholars, curators, and collectors in North America and Europe for many decades. Recent projects include Gems of Ink Painting from

the Drucker Collection: Japanese Art beloved by the ‘Father of Management’ (Bijutsu Shuppansha, 2015) and A Giant Leap: The Transformation of Hasegawa Tōhaku (co-author with Miyeko Murase, Japan Society Gallery, 2018). He is currently co-editing the exhibition catalogue The Life of Animals in Japanese Art (with Robert Singer, Princeton University Press, forthcoming 2019).

MICHIYO MORIOKA, PH.D. Independent Scholar

Michiyo Morioka (Ph.D., University of Washington) is an independent scholar specializing in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Japanese painting in traditional style. Among her major publications are Modern Masters of Kyoto: The Transformation of Japanese Painting Traditions, Nihonga from the Griffith and Patricia Way Collection (Seattle Art Museum, 1999), An American Artist in Tokyo: Frances Blakemore, 1906–1997 (The Blakemore Foundation, 2007), and Literati Modern: Bunjinga from Late Edo to Twentieth-Century Japan, The Terry Welch Collection at the Honolulu Academy of Arts (Honolulu Academy of Arts, 2008).

title: Modern Vision: Mount Penglai by Kondō Kōichiro

description:This lecture will focus on Mount Penglai 蓬莱仙山, a dramatic ink painting created by Kondō Kōichiro 近藤浩一路 (1884–1962) in the late 1920s. Dr. Morioka will elucidate how this painting opens the door for a glimpse into the innovative approaches of twentieth-century Japanese artists.

JOSHUA S. MOSTOW, PH.D.Professor and Associate Head, Department of Asian Studies; Co-Director, Centre for Japanese Research, University of British Columbia

Joshua S. Mostow is Professor and Associate Head in the Department of Asian Studies and Co-Director of the Centre for Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada). His publications include: Courtly Visions: The Ise Stories and the Politics of Cultural Appropriation, Japanese Visual Culture series no. 12 (Brill, 2014); with Henk J. Herwig, The Hundred Poets Compared: A Print Series by Kuniyoshi, Hiroshige, and Kunisada (Hotei, 2007); and co-edited with Norman Bryson and Maribeth Graybill, Gender and Power in the Japanese Visual Field (University of Hawai’i Press, 2003). His research focuses on text-image relations in Japanese culture.

title: Retired Emperor Goyōzei’s Waka Album and “The Poetry-Contest between Different Eras”

description:This lecture will explore the many elements that comprise an album of calligraphed poems attributed to Retired Emperor Goyōzei (1571–1617) and eleven courtiers, examining the ornamental paper on which the poems are inscribed, the script used, the selection of poems, the genre of poetry-contests, the album format, and the content of the poems themselves, revealing the long and changing culture of Japanese poetry. The talk will also explore Retired Emperor Goyōzei and his personality, and show that the album itself can be seen as an example of how he championed a revival of imperial court culture.

SADAKO OHKI, PH.D. Japan Foundation Associate Curator of Japanese Art, Yale University Art Gallery

Sadako Ohki is the Japan Foundation Associate Curator of Japanese Art at the Yale University Art Gallery, where she curated the special exhibitions Tea Culture of Japan (2009) and Byōbu: The Grandeur of Japanese Screens (2014). Dr. Ohki’s lifelong interest in calligraphy is manifested in numerous essays, including “Collage of Painting, Calligraphy, and Poetry: A Study of Taiga’s Ink Bamboo with Kanshi Verse,” in the exhibition catalogue Ike Taiga and Tokuyama Gyokuran: Japanese Masters of the Brush (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2007); “Konoe Nobutada’s Waka Byobu: Kana Calligraphy and the Triumph of a Courtier,” Orientations (Hong Kong, 2012); and “Japanese Calligraphy at Yale: From Sutra to the Avant-Garde,” Arts of Asia (March-April 2018). Among her many current projects, The Private World of Surimono: Japanese Prints from the Drosten-Kenadjian Collection is forthcoming from Yale University Press, Fall 2019. This catalogue elucidates Japanese culture and history—in addition to art, language, and literature—through the combined art of images and kyōka poems from the first half of the nineteenth century.

title: Form and Line: The Art of Calligraphy

description:The phrase “East Asian calligraphy” often calls to mind refined works of art: dancing black ink executed with sophisticated brush-handling on white washi paper. The soft-hair brush responds especially well to sensitive and powerful lines generated by a calligrapher. However, before the sophisticated calligraphic line was possible, the main stage of calligraphic art was the forms of characters themselves. Beginning with incised oracle bones and later cast onto bronze vessels, these ancient seal scripts had an enduring appeal: they are manifested in many of the seals appearing in the Cowles Collection. Modern Japanese calligraphers were fascinated by the formal beauty found in ancient scripts. By imbuing each gesture of the brush with great emotion, these new practitioners pushed the boundaries of the medium to explore exciting new realms of the calligraphic art. This lecture will explore both form and line as essential aspects of the art of calligraphy.

ARATA SHIMAOProfessor, Faculty of Letters, Gakushūin University

Arata Shimao is Professor of Japanese Art History at Gakushūin University in Tokyo. A leading scholar of the famous Muromachi-period painter Sesshū (1420–1506), his research addresses many facets of medieval and early-modern Japanese ink painting. Recent publications include For a Deeper Understanding of Sesshū: His Life and Works (もっと知りたい雪舟: 生涯と作品, Tokyo Bijutsu, 2012) and Blurring the Boundary Between ‘Wa’ and ‘Kan’: The Idea of Chanoyu and Japanese Culture (和漢のさかいをまぎらかす : 茶の湯の理念と日本文化, Tankōsha, 2013).

title: The World of Brush and Ink

description:Suibokuga, or ink painting, uses two essential components: black ink and a brush. Yet these seemingly simple materials create a rich art form that breathes life onto the blank surface of white paper or silk. Ink can impart a variety of tones, from the palest gray to the deepest black; water allows for infinite gradations and shading. When the tip of the brush touches the surface of a painting, ink soaks into the fibers of the supporting paper or silk. Thus, ink painting exists not only “on” the support, but also “in” the support. Understanding the nature of ink is fundamental to a deeper appreciation of ink painting. In this lecture, Professor Shimao will use the nature of ink as a starting point to explore several of the typical styles, subjects, and expressive characters of the ink paintings which can be seen in the exhibition.

Yosa Buson (Japanese, 1716-1783), Thatched Retreat on Cold Mountain, early to mid-1770s, hanging scroll; ink and color on silk, Collection of Mary and Cheney Cowles, , L2017.67.39