art Archives - understand-culture

Painting from Bed

On September 17, 1925, a streetcar hit the bus in which Frida Kahlo was traveling. According to the Museo Frida Kahlo, she was immobile for months and began to paint. Her mother asked a carpenter to make an easel that could be used in bed. Her mother also had a mirror placed on the top frame of the bed.

The museum keeps the bed in the room that Kahlo used during the day, “con el espejo en el dintel” (with the mirror in its top frame). During the convalescence, which kept her immobile for nine months, she was able to start painting portraits.

The Controlled Accident

David Alfaro Siqueiros called one of his techniques accidente controlado, the controlled accident. Nitrocellulose lacquers, “también llamadas piroxilinas” (also called pyroxylins), played a central part in it. They were used for car paint and nail varnish. He threw the paint with a brocha de aire, an air brush. Jackson Pollock attended an experimental workshop held in New York.

In 2015, a UNAM team led by Roberto Zenit explained the physics behind the technique, a fluid phenomenon called the Rayleigh-Taylor instability.

Great Masters of Folk Art

In 1999, Fomento Cultural Banamex set out “dar a conocer en 1999 el trabajo de grandes artistas de los 32 estados de la república” (to make known the work of great artists of the 32 states of the republic), according to Chilango. It did so with a book called Grandes Maestros del Arte Popular Mexicano (Great Masters of Mexican Folk Art).

Ex-Votos

Exvotos are “pequeñas pinturas, hechas sobre láminas de metal o madera” (small paintings, made on sheets of metal or wood), in the words of Chilango. They are “pinturas de pequeño formato en las que se registra el favor recibido de Dios, la virgen o algún santo” (small paintings that record the favor received from God, the Virgin or a saint).

Sketching from Life

The haiku poet Masaoka Shiki called on poets to practice shasei, sketching from life. The magazine Waraku writes that his idea of shasei had direct or indirect links to Western-style painters, among them Nakamura Fusetsu, Shimomura Izan and Asai Chū.

In 1894, Shiki asked Shimomura to draw the illustrations for the haiku column of the newspaper Shō-Nippon. Shimomura declined, and the work went to Nakamura.

Introduction, Break, Haste

Jo-ha-kyū (序破急): introduction, break, haste. In gagaku , the old court music, the word names the three movements of a piece. The Noh master Zeami applied it to the structure of a Noh play and to the order of plays in a day’s program.

The encyclopedia Mypedia notes that Zeami made a structure of five sections the basis of Noh composition: one section for jo , three for ha and one for kyū .

The Pillow

A rakugo performance begins with the makura , the pillow. The storyteller opens with small talk and short jokes before the actual story. In a guide for beginners in the magazine of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, a writer from the National Engei Hall explains: Makura o futte kankyaku no kimochi ga yawaraida tokoro de, hanashika wa hondai ni hairimasu. “When the makura has put the audience at ease, the storyteller enters the main story.”

A Kyoto City guide calls the makura the warm-up before the story. With it, the storyteller finds out what that day’s audience likes.

Nameless Craftsmen

The Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Komaba, Tokyo, was founded by Yanagi Sōetsu, who also wrote a prospectus for a museum of folk crafts. The museum describes mingei, folk crafts, as everyday objects made by nameless craftsmen.

Traditional Craftsman

In 1974, Japan passed the Act on the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries. Under it, a craftsperson can be certified as a dentō kōgeishi, a traditional craftsman. To take the examination, a candidate must have at least twelve years of practical experience in the producing region and still be working in the craft.