Cherry Blossom Festival

Back in the early spring days, Mum came to visit, and I made her walk ten million miles into Fairmont Park to check out the Cherry Blossom Festival.

Very crowded, all watching the taiko drummers.

The cherry trees were beautiful.

Mum is such a sucker for the kitty.  All Cordie has to do it walk into a room and Mum is all, "Oooo... who needs some treats!  Odd numbers only!"  (Cordie likes to sit on paper.)

Mum and Cordie like to hang out together in the mornings.  Photo by Mum.  Glaring by Cordie.

Philly Cherry Blossoms

The cherry blossoms were out of control last weekend, just in time for the annual Cherry Blossom Festival! There are commercial sponsors for the festival, but I think it's kind of tacky tp mention them. So I'm leaving them out.

In 1926, the Japanese government donated 1,600 flowering cherry trees to the city of Philadelphia, as a friendly gesture. And in 2007, the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia finished planting another 1,000 cherry trees. They also care for the cherry trees in the public parks. So things have been pretty lovely around here.

I didn't go to the cherry blossom festival, but for the past few weeks I've enjoyed walking past a few really large and lovely trees on my morning commute.

Some Japanese Woodblock Prints

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has one of the world's best collections of Japanese woodblock prints. They have a small portion of the collection online, available to view as super-high quality images. All the images below I have borrowed from the MFA Boston.

The prints were to the merchant class of post-feudal Japan as genre paintings were to the merchant class of the Netherlands during the Dutch Golden Age. They were often of pretty women, notable actors (in the roles for which they had won renown), beautiful landscapes, flowers, and interesting scenes. Such as Japanese soldiers are attacking a Chinese camp (see below). And since they were prints, if one was very popular, many others more could be made.

Kobayashi Kiyochika, Meiji era, 1894









Suzuki Harunobu, Edo period, ~1776-68


















The Japanese generally liked prints that captured something transient, like mist, or cherry blossoms, or snow.
Utagawa Hiroshige, Edo period, 1833-34












Katsushika Hokusai, Edo period, 1834


















Multiples of prints were often made, but the end result was usually different, with the colors and special effects being more complex toward the beginning of the printing and more simple toward the end. Often dramatically so. Scholars can learn when in a series a particular object was printed by comparing these characteristics. The print below, the red Mount Fuji, is actually one of the later prints, but is considered one of the more beautiful ones from this block.
Katsushika Hokusai, Edo period, ~1830–31












This is ridiculously famous. College kids all over America have this as a poster in their dorm rooms. I've seen it. That and that one van Gogh, the Cafe at Night, or whatever it is called.
Katsushika Hokusai, Edo period, ~1830–31

Japanese Woodblock Print Workshop

At the end of January, I was invited to return to Winterthur to participate in a workshop about the materials, techniques, and conservation of Japanese woodblock prints. The paper lab was hosting, and the guest lecturer was one of the former Winterthur paper conservators and one of my old professors, Betty! My fellow Winterthur grads at the Centre were also invited: one of the perks of being local WUDPAC alumni.

Betty's specialty, and her favorite things, are Japanese prints. (She did laugh and say that Old Master drawings were pretty nice as well...) She studied for some years in Japan, working with a Japanese paper conservator, examining multitudes of prints, and learning all about Asian art on paper.

Like all good conservation workshops, it involved some hands-on learning. Betty in action.


















Woo! Very different than Western paper!


















Betty washes a woodblock book page.














Do not try this at home. There is a reason for the advanced degree.














Joan, the Winterthur paper conservator, tinkering with her camera, while the current WUDPAC students work.