The latest of three art exhibitions now on display on campus is the “Fun History Book of Japan: Cartoons and Brush Sketches from the Twenties,” and is housed in the Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies. The two albums, represented in digital prints for the exhibition, contain popular depictions of historic events in Japanese history. The books that contain the original brush sketches are on display in cases near the reproductions.
“We wanted the viewer to be able to learn from these images, without already knowing Japanese history,” said Haruna Suzuki ’04, student curator, at the opening reception this past Tuesday. “It’s not really about the artists, but about the history of Japan.”
The images are arranged chronologically, starting with the formation of Japan. Their progress though Japanese history shows key figures in the country, everyone from princes to artists, monks to actors. Events, such as the burning of Edo (present-day Tokyo) or the writing of the Tale of the Genji, (considered to be the first true novel) also appear in the sketches.
Earl D. Hanson, a former Wesleyan professor of Biology and Genetics, collected the albums from an antique dealer in the 1960s. After his death, Hanson’s daughter, Mardi Hanson-d’Alessandro, the Art Library assistant at the University, introduced the images to the Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies.
“I know he wanted people to enjoy them and for them to be displayed.” said Hanson-d’Alessandro. “The images next to each other are like night and day, at times. One is delicate, and the image next to it may be much coarser and more vigorous. It’s clear that they are done by many different artists.”
The artists, incidentally, are not well known. The two volumes contain the work of about forty different artists, all with unique and clearly contrasting styles. All of them, however, demonstrate the popular Japanese perspective of the period.
“This art is from the 1920s, between the world wars,” said Hanson-d’Alessandro. “It was a different phase in history. This exhibition lets us see a little of the Japanese world view.”
“The exhibition shows a popular perspective,” said Patrick Dowdey, curator at the Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies. “The art is exaggerated and dramatized, it’s not like a history book. I think the title really catches the nature of the images. These images come across very strongly; they really are popular and easy to approach.”
Student curators at the Mansfield Freeman Center made important contributions to this exhibition, which was heavy in production. Many sketches tell their stories in Japanese, and thus students prepared accompanying captions that explain their historical significance.
“This was a chance for us to prepare a whole exhibition by ourselves,” said Taka Hiro Haneda ’06, who translated the Classical Japanese to English. “I had to catch the critical words and figure out what’s going on in the sketch. We also did a lot of research to figured out the details of the history for the captions.”
“The project involved taking the pictures and getting information about the history of the images,” Suzuki said. “We had to figure out what was going on, names, and dates. And, of course, translating the old Japanese.”
The high level of student involvement in the selection of images, research and presentation for this exhibition is part of what makes it special, according to student curators. The most difficult part of the planning process was deciding which images would not make the cut.
“It was really hard to choose the 31 images out of 100. We had to narrow it down step by step, considering which events were most important in history and which sketches would attract the viewer,” said Tu Chi Nguyen ’06, another student curator.
The Fun History Book of Japan will be on display at the Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies through Friday, March 5. Call (860) 685-2330 for information and Gallery hours.
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