Redaccion
The Mayor, Inés Rey, chaired the public opening of the exhibition ‘Art and War: Geishas and Samurai in ancient Japan’. This exhibition will be open to the public at the Luis Seoane Foundation until September 7th. It is a project curated by Ferrán López Alargada, president of the Spanish Federation of Antiques, which brings together a selection of works belonging to one of the most important Japanese art collections in our country.
"From the municipal government, we are very aware of the Luis Seoane Foundation when planning major exhibitions like this one, which demonstrate the quality of the space we are in and its versatility to host all kinds of activities," said Rey, who was accompanied by the Councilor for Culture and Tourism, Gonzalo Castro. The exhibition, promoted by the City Council of A Coruña, offers a complete panorama of Japanese life in the 19th century through a set of significant pieces such as ukiyo-e prints or floating world prints, period photographs, traditional armor and kimonos, and a variety of objects, along with a section dedicated to Katsushika Hokusai’s Great Wave off Kanagawa, perhaps the most famous representation of this period.
In total, there are over a hundred works selected by the exhibition curator grouped into six sections: Theater, Geisha, Shunga. Images of spring; Netsuke, kakemono, and period photographs; War Culture and Samurai.
Theater
The exhibition opens with ukiyo-e prints, prints made with the woodblock technique, a relief printing process of Chinese origin that dates back to the Han period (206 BC – 220 AD) and was introduced to Japan around the 7th century AD. Ukiyo-e became popular during the Edo period (1603-1868) in sumi version, only in black; later the images were hand-colored in red and orange, then in green, yellow, and pink, and finally, by the mid-18th century, in full color as nishiki-e, literally ‘brocade prints’.
Among the ukiyo-e prints, those depicting scenes from Noh, the classical theater of Japan, reserved in its beginnings for the aristocracy, stand out; and those related to kabuki theater, a term that could be translated as ‘deviate’ or ‘transgress’. Arising from chonin culture, it is the popular version of Noh, and one of the most significant artistic expressions of the Edo period. The representations were inspired by the lives of prostitutes and low-ranking dancers, and the ronin or masterless samurai, and the actors who portrayed them were true popular heroes.
Geisha
The representation of the female figure was extensive in the production of ukiyo-e artists, a real lure to capture the essence of the new society, fashions, idealized beauty and sensuality, grace, and opulence.
Geishas were artists, dancers, and instrument performers, not prostitutes. Poetically called ‘night butterflies’ in Japan, they constituted a true profession of refined host-entertainers, experts in the art of conversation. They wore elaborate kimonos, which means ‘what one wears’ or ‘what one carries on the shoulders’, a traditional garment used interchangeably by men and women. In this section, the public will also see everyday objects such as combs, fans, mirrors, or wigs.
Shunga. Images of spring
This section addresses shunga or images of spring, also known in the period as makurae, pillow images, and warai-e. It is a prominent genre in ukiyo-e production that collects prints with erotic themes, very different from their Western counterparts of the time, which were usually more licentious.
These representations are common in the production of the great masters of Japanese art and reveal an extremely subtle conception of eroticism. There is a kind of symbolic codification of life and, therefore, sexual activities in them, where the "expressionist" emphasis and even caricature prevail.
Netsuke, kakemono, and period photographs
In the exhibition, several examples of netsuke or root for fastening, an essential accessory in traditional Japanese dress used and still used in certain acts by men, women, and children, can be seen. Since the kosode or kimono lacks pockets, in the 17th century, these practical pieces were invented, consisting of "a counterweight that, attached by a cord to an object, serves so that it can be hung from the belt or obi, and also does not slip." In this way, it was possible to carry coins, tobacco, a brush and ink case, etc.
The kakemono, literally "hanging scroll," is another type of support on paper or silk on which images or writing were represented, an element that highlights the constant pursuit of balance in interior spaces typical of Japanese culture.
Also in this section, the importance of photography in documenting the disappearance of a world will be addressed, as will be captured by the Italian photographer Felice Beato, considered the father of Japanese photography, along with other Western artists interested in Japanese culture and society.
War Culture
The protagonist of this section is the musha or tribal warrior, an archetype of a solitary hero, a leader on the battlefield, an aesthete, a guardian of peace, and a defender of aristocratic power. Over the centuries, it will be transformed into the figure of the samurai, which means ‘one who serves’, a heroic and mythical representation of Japan’s warrior tradition built on a continuous transposition of history and legend.
Samurai
The Japanese warrior always prioritized their agility in combat over any form of protection that could hinder them. The very structure of the ancient Japanese armor, of which several examples can be seen in the exhibition, favored this characteristic: its laminar structure (dō-maru type armor), the quality of the material, and its excessive thickness provided a valid defense against light weapons and a lesser protection, sufficient against direct attacks (pike blows or sword cuts), which at the same time guaranteed the warrior the necessary agility to defend themselves correctly.
This typology of armor remained basically intact over time, with slight adaptations as combat tactics varied, until the introduction of firearms in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the imperative need to reinforce the personal protection of the samurai led to the abandonment of laminar armor in favor of plated armor or tosei-gusoku.
