Art Show Review

Today I went to the Santa Barbara Museum or art. I wanted to check it out and see how it compared to the LA museums that I am used to. It was a lot smaller but they did have some good exhibitions going on right now. It is a formal and small museum. I was kind of sad that they didn't have any garden areas but it was really great all the same.

The exhibition that I paid special attention to was the Tsukioka Kōgy exhibition of Japanese wood block prints made from scenes in theatre productions. The exhibition was called Noh Drama. It was an action filled exhibition that featured great traditional style wood block art. The style was a little more modern than that of Hiroshige who died about 50 years before Kogy was boen but I could still see the definite traditional style present in the work. This exhibition was extremely interesting to me because I had seen a massive collection of Hiroshige's work on display at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena and was curious to compare the two artists. I think one of the main differences in the work was that in Kogy's pieces the background was often in grey creating a lot of contrast between the subjects of the print and the background whereas Hiroshige preserved a lot of detail in a very vivid background. It was interesting to see the evolution of this tradition and one of Kogy's pieces even reminded me of modern anime. (below). I couldn't help but notice the recurring theme of the ocean. It makes sense that the ocean which is so important to the Japanese because it's a main source of where they get their food from. It is a great symbol of their culture.

Kogy's piece titled Nue (1925-1928)

Hiroshige's Naruto Rapids

I think that the art of wood block printing is so beautiful and so stylistically appealing. I love to go to see these kind of exhibitions when I can.

Press Release of the exhibition that I went to: http://www.sbma.net/library/files/Noh%20Drama%20release%20FINAL.pdf