|
|
|
|
Gain access to this incredible resource through either a monthly or a yearly subscription and search the entire collection from your desktop, compare multiple images side by side and zoom into the minute details of the images. Visit www.davidrumsey.com/amica for more information on the collection, click on the link below the revolving thumbnail to the right, or email us at amica@luna-img.com . Creator Name: Watanabe, Kazan Creator Nationality: Asian; Far East Asian; Japanese Creator Role: Artist Creator Dates/Places: 1793 - 1841 Gender: M Creator Name-CRT: Kazan Watanabe Title: Portrait of Ozora Buzaemon Title Type: Primary View: Full View Creation Start Date: 1827 Creation End Date: 1827 Creation Date: 1827 Object Type: Paintings Materials and Techniques: Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper Dimensions: Image: 221.3cm x 117.6cm, Overall: 257.8cm x 139.7cm AMICA Contributor: The Cleveland Museum of Art Owner Location: Cleveland, Ohio, USA ID Number: 1980.177 Credit Line: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund Rights: http://www.clemusart.com/museum/disclaim2.html Context: Watanabe Kazan enjoyed the exalted social status of being born into the samurai class, yet he suffered from poverty during his entire lifetime. Indeed, nineteenth-century Japan was a period of social and economic turbulence, and government officials frequently found it impossible to support themselves on an annual stipend. Kazan's predicament was exacerbated by his talent and his intellect. As a young man he excelled in his studies of the Chinese and Japanese classics, and this traditional course propelled him into an examination of Western ideas, which were popular at the time but officially censored by the seclusionist military government. Stifled economically and intellectually by the status quo, Kazan pursued a career as a painter to support himselfbut also followed his interests in the outside world. Realizing Japan's weakened position in a rapidly modernizing world order, he openly proclaimed the country's need to secure its own interests while it entered the international arena of world affairs.Not embraced by the government, his views instead led to his arrest, exile, and eventual suicide. Kazan met Ozorabuzaemon in Edo where the young man from the distant provinces had traveled with his feudal lord in hope of becoming a sumo wrestler. His gigantic size and shy country manners attracted great curiosity in urban Edo. These features are recorded in Kazan's sketch portrait, done when he met Ozorabuzaemon in the summer of 1827 at a friend's house. In addition to the various statistics recorded in the inscription is an actual impression of the giant's handprint, testimony to the era's keen interest in the documentation of natural phenomena ý la Western scientific methods currently in vogue in Japan. Kazan's portrayal, beginning with the preliminarydrawing lines, which are still visible, is poignantly sympathetic and intense. It uses the informality of the assembled paper sheets, sketchily brushed lines, and then transparent ink washes to convey the psychological fragility of the subject and, in a way, the artist's own condition. M.R.C. AMICA ID: CMA_.1980.177 AMICA Library Year: 1998 Media Metadata Rights: Copyright, The Cleveland Museum of Art AMICA PUBLIC RIGHTS: a) Access to the materials is granted for personal and non-commercial use. b) A full educational license for non-commercial use is available from Cartography Associates at www.davidrumsey.com/amica/institution_subscribe.html c) Licensed users may continue their examination of additional materials provided by Cartography Associates, and d) commercial rights are available from the rights holder. Home
| Subscribe
| Preview
| Benefits
| About
| Help
| Contact |
