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  Striking Chords II: Music in Ukiyo-e Prints (2022)

  Theory & History of Art & Design Department and Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

  "The theme of music in ukiyo-e prints has been explored by the RISD art history students for two semesters (fall 2021 and spring 2022) in a hands-on curatorial format. The resulting exhibition Striking Chords: Music in Ukiyo-e Prints, is on view at the RISD Museum from February through July 2022.

  The spring semester project is virtual. However, the approach is similar – to comprehensively study music-related prints in the collection of the RISD Museum and to share the findings with interested audiences, albeit in digital format.

  Nineteen prints have been selected. In the exhibition’s virtual space, they are displayed according to thematic areas. Those display areas include prints illustrating music played for leisure – sometimes solely for pleasure but occasionally for celebratory occurrences or for moral instruction. Another area shows prints associated with professional performers – actors of the kabuki theater, chanters of the puppet theater, or street entertainers. There are also sections dedicated to prints that depict music performed within mythical lore, or ceremonial music as well as martial music. ...

  By close visual exploration of this selection of prints, by investigating circumstances of the scenes represented and peculiarities of the objects depicted, by striving to uncover cultural references imbedded in these images, by listening to music played on the instruments depicted students who curated this exhibition sought to come closer to the beautiful and intriguing world of ukiyo-e prints.

  The sound continues for but a moment, ukiyo-e prints were designed as ephemera, but their resonance appears timeless. We hope that this exhibition’s virtual visitors will echo these sentiments." -- Foreword, Striking Chords II: Music in Ukiyo-e Prints

  Contributing Authors

  Leslie Berumen Flores, Alisa Boardman, Junyi Cao, Yuhi Chang, Connie Cheng, Meicheng Chi, Cyra Cupid, Monet Fukawa, Nina Hong, Ryan Hsiao, Rose Kim, Timothy Li, Jessica Lin, Baidurjya Madhav, Jae Nam, Maxton O'Connor, Jiyeon Park, Zhiying Shi, Hanna Suros, Milo Tomizawa, Kevin Wu, Jingjing Yang, Yisheng Yuan, Jiayun Carina Zhang, Zizheng Roye Zhang, Alex Jihao Zhu.

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  The First Dance of the Year: Harugoma - the Spring Horse Dance (2022)

  Hanna Suros, Theory & History of Art & Design Department, and Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

  Student animation created by Hanna Suros FAV '22 to augment a group presentation for H791 2022 course Striking Chords II: Music in Ukiyo-e Prints.

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  Striking Chords: Music in Ukiyo-e Prints (2021)

  Theory & History of Art & Design Department and Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

  "The book “Striking Chords: music in ukiyo-e prints” is a student version of a scholarly catalog that accompanies the RISD Museum’s ukiyo-e prints exhibition of the same title. ... This exhibition is a culmination of an ukiyo-e art history course taught at RISD in the fall of 2021. The project was generously accommodated by the RISD Museum. With the help of Wai Yee Chiong, Associate Curator of Asian Art, fifteen prints were selected from the collection of the RISD Museum. For the exhibition’s online component, which is still under construction, additional prints were chosen – two more from the RISD collection, four from the collection of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, Russia, and one from a private collection. All these works are included in the catalog. ... In the spirit of the exhibition topic, this project prompted the entire class to work in concordance as if an instrumental ensemble or even an orchestra. It is the students’ hope that their “Striking Chords” project does indeed strike a chord in the exhibition visitors." -- Foreword, Striking Chords: music in ukiyo-e prints

  Contributing Authors

  Joanne Ahn, Benjamin Anderson, Miranda Cancelosi, Yuanyuan Yuki Cao, Zhenrui Ray Cao, Naiqian Chen, Julia Chien, Lynn Cho, Yewon Chun, Zewei Feng, Jamie Gim, Nicholas Grassi, Tzu-Chun Hsu, Jessie Jing, Jackson Kneath, Yingshuet Celine Lam, Haoyu Li, Rilia Li, Jason Liao, Serene Lin, Yichen Ariel Pan, Lydia Pinkhassik, Xiaoqi Shen, Shuixin Wang, Jihyun Woo, Catherine Wu, Jack Wulf, Liu Yang, Yue Zi, Qi Caroline Zou.

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  Marching Through the Floating World: Processions in Ukiyo-e Prints (2020)

  Theory & History of Art & Design Department and Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

  "Marching through the Floating World is a book that accompanies a student curated virtual exhibition of the same title. This exhibition is dedicated to images of processions in ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

  Ukiyo-e or “pictures of the floating world” was a vibrant style of urban art that flourished in Japan in the 17th- 19th century, predominantly in the form of mass-produced woodcuts. Steeped in everyday pleasurable pastimes of townspeople, ukiyo-e prints reflected contemporary culture to its fullest, whether fact or fiction, often the two amalgamated in a witty way.

  Processions constituted a noticeable theme in ukiyo-e prints as they were an integral part of the commoners’ visual experience. Daimyo processions were traveling from the warlords’ domains to the shogunal capital of Edo (Tokyo) and back as demanded by the sankin-kotai or alternate attendance system. Community processions with exotic floats were essential for matsuri, Shinto and Buddhist festivals. Art, however, goes beyond reality, and in ukiyo-e prints one sees daimyo processions parodied by beautiful women or mimicked by boys. Parades by foreign embassies also appear in ukiyo-e prints, primarily parades of the Korean embassies, often fantasized. Depicted were also processions of supernatural beings or imaginary nostalgic processions in prints of the Meiji era.

  Students’ research essays on prints like those mentioned above (and more!) were compiled into a book, which together with educational wall labels, programming brochures and souvenirs constitute an outcome of an art history course taught at RISD in the fall of 2020. This is the eighth project of the kind. ..." -- Foreword, Marching Through the Floating World: Processions in Ukiyo-e Prints

  Contributing Authors

  Julie Alter, Kade Byrand, Cecilia Cao, Young Ju Choi, Nate Epstein-Toney, Emma Fujita, Catherine Hackl, Helina He Yuheng, Victoria Khrobostova, Benjamin Lamacchia, DaRong Lang, Sofie Levin, Julian Linares, Deirdre Rouse, Joshua Sun, Rauf Syunyaev, Tiffany Weng, Yue Xu, Yuanqing Echo Yao, Kaori Yasunagi, Manni Yu, Wei Zhang, Si Nong Summer Zheng, Holly Gaboriault.

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  Asakusa ~ Gateway to the Floating World (2019)

  Theory & History of Art & Design Department and Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

  "Asakusa, a bustling district of Japan’s capital, emerged as a heart of city life during the Edo period (1603-1868). Its popularity continued after Edo was renamed Tokyo in 1868 soon after the beginning of the Meiji era. ...

  Thus, Asakusa came to function as a physical and metaphorical path to and site of ukiyo – ‘the floating world,’ an Edo period term, referring to the modern habits and aspirations of townspeople. The notion of ukiyo embraced the lifestyle of city dwellers, their pleasure-seeking, vanity and devotion, intellectual sophistication and playfulness. All this was captured with remarkable exactitude in the ‘pictures of the floating world’ – ukiyo-e, the style of visual art that started in painting but truly developed in the mass-produced medium of woodblock printing.

  It was this big theme – Asakusa as the hub of popular culture – that became the focus of inquiry for RISD students of the art history curatorial course Ukiyo-e Prints (H 791) in the fall semester of 2019. Investigating the original ukiyo-e prints from the collection of the RISD Museum, students have selected Keisai Eisen’s triptych Picture of the Kanzeon Thunder Gate at the Kinryuzan Sensoji Temple in Edo, 1828, as the nucleus of their exhibition project. Students then singled out aspects of the culture of the ‘floating world’ that are present in this composition or resonate with it. Accordingly, nine additional prints were chosen for the exhibition project to illustrate the relevant topics.

  A challenging task was to elaborate a meaningful layout of the exhibition in which the nucleus print had to hold the central position, while all other were envisioned as displayed radially.

  Working in small study groups, students explored all prints in comprehensive essays, discussed their findings in class with their peers, and put together a scholarly catalog. ..." -- Foreword, Asakusa ~ Gateway to the Floating World

  Contributing Authors

  Barbara Bieniek, Cain Cai, Anna Campbell, Jina Choi, Kaanchi Chopra, Olivia Diamond, Connor Gewirtz, Mary Iorio, Peiqing Jiang, Kalyani Kastor, Roger Li, Emily Mahar, Connor Nguyen, Jacqueline Qiu, Xin Lan Violet Ren, Chenxi Tracy Shi, Song Tan, Cam Unruh, Xiaoben Wang, Yixiao Owen Wang, Jordan Weed, Yuki Xu, Qingyi Yang, Yinan Yang, Yueting Val Zhao

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  Boating in the Floating World: ukiyo-e prints (2018)

  Theory & History of Art & Design Department and Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

  "The student-curated exhibition “Boating in the Floating World” focuses on images of boats in ukiyo-e prints as represented in some works from the collection of the RISD Museum. Boats were occasionally depicted in the 18th century celebrity-focused figurative genres. Fairly often they appeared in bijinga – images of beauties, rarely in yakusha-e – portraits of kabuki theater actors, sometimes in compositions derived from literature, history or lore. Nautical motifs became much more pronounced from 1830s with the powerful upsurge of the landscape genre that is believed to have been triggered by the increasingly available Berlin blue – a non-fugitive artificial pigment of deep, saturated hues. Views of well-known places, widely familiar both as nature sites and scenes of ordinary life became shown in different seasons, time of the day and weather conditions. These landscape images were easily relatable to a broad variety of print viewers and, additionally, carried new profundity hidden within everyday motifs. ..." -- Foreword, Boating in the Floating World

  Contributing Authors

  Tanya Agarwal, Kaylyn Chileen, Hye Jin Cho, Jeongmun Victoria Choi, Jane Gorelik, Max Hertz, Xiner Jiang, Olivia Kim, Junsun Ko, Kanika Kumar, Elizaveta Lazarchuk, Daniel Lee, Qihang Li, Victoria Liang, William Mitchell, Jonathan Muroya, Mallika Nanda, Samantha NG, Chaeri Park, Zying Jennie Peng, Sophie Sena, Iain Wall, Naiqian Mac Wang, Sonia Wang, Yihan Wang, Jen Chenyu Zhang, Cindy Zhang

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  SUKIMA: Vertical Views of the Floating World (2017)

  Theory & History of Art & Design Department and Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

  "Sukima is a Japanese word for a crack in a door, a narrow space that opens up when the panels of the sliding doors are pushed to the sides. ... You’ve seen enough to electrify your imagination and let it complete the picture. This is what happens when you look at a long and narrow ukiyo-e print in a pillar format – hashira-e. Or perhaps this partial sight only unleashes your curiosity and, craving a fuller view, you expand the narrow slit and can now enjoy broader vistas replete with details. For such cases ukiyo-e designers came up with upright diptychs and even triptychs.

  Exploration of these two types of perception – we can describe them as an evocative one (in the case with the hashira-e) and an evidence-based (in the case of vertical polyptychs) – became a focus of an ukiyo-e prints exhibition curated by RISD students in the fall semester of 2017 as a part of their art history course. The project was based on the collection of the RISD Museum that has continuously supported students’ aspirations to acquire real- life curatorial experience. The current exhibition is the fifth in succession. ..." -- Foreword, SUKIMA: Vertical Views of the Floating World

  Contributing Authors

  Meredith Barone, Anna Rose Chi, Emilee Chun, Pooja Cavale, Clara Creavin, Indy Dang, Cindy Del Rio, Janice Gan, Sophi Miyoko Gullbrants, Jung Eun Han, Janice Kim, Yujin Kim, Tamao Kiser, Quincy Kuang, Osub Lee, Kirthank Manivannan, Zachary Nguyen, Jay Park, Pornmanie Na Snidvongs, Jaeyong Sung, Pornpiya Mim Tejapaibul, Lara Torrance, Clarke Waskowitz, Anna Xuan, Chi Yang, Katherine Yoon, Qianyi Zhang.

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  Earthly Pleasures: Bounty in Ukiyo-e Prints (2015)

  Theory & History of Art & Design Department and Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

  "Earthly Pleasures or, broader, nature’s riches and man, is a topic for an exhibition project of the ukiyo-e prints curatorial course taught at RISD in the Fall Semester of 2015. When deciding on this subject matter we were curious to see how the urban art of ukiyo-e with its focus on figurative representation of celebrities dealt with the nature theme, essential for Japanese culture and all-pervading in Japanese classical visual arts and literature. Did ukiyo-e artists include images of nature in their compositions? If yes, then who, when and how? It is with this quest in mind that a selection of thirteen prints from the collection of the RISD Museum has been made. ..." -- Foreword, Earthly Pleasures: Bounty in Ukiyo-e Prints

  Contributing Authors

  Zashary Caro, Sabrina Catlett, Daniel Chae, Boong Chamnanratanakul, Erika Chang, Jamie Chen, Jolene Dosa, Megan Farrell, Saskia Fleishman, Rachel Hahn, Serena Hong, Minkyung Kim, Do Yun Kwak, Yuri Lee, Laura Lin, Nandi Lu, Shanaiya Maloo, Minty Pitaksuteephong, Tim Rooney, Isabelle Rose, Caitlyn Sit, Jessica Song, Alyssa Spytman, Juan Tang Hon, Fallon Wong, Yiran Jasphy Zheng.

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  The Living Torrents: Hokusai's "Journey Around the Waterfalls of Various Provinces" (2014)

  Theory & History of Art & Design Department and Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

  "This book invites its readers to join RISD WS 2014 Japanese Prints class for an edifying expedition to Japan’s eight waterfalls portrayed by Katsushika Hokusai, an ukiyo-e preeminent artist, in his masterpiece print series “A Journey to the Waterfalls of Various Provinces.” In fact, this expedition is an academic endeavor undertaken by a collective of students who tried their hand at curating a museum exhibition as their art history course project. ..." -- Foreword, The Living Torrents: Hokusai's " Journey Around the Waterfalls of Various Provinces"

  Contributing Authors

  Jane Bak, Graham Bessellieu, Amy Chen, Julie Chon, Sofia Diaz de la Rocha, Margaret Finaly, Luis Gonzalez, Sarah Haenn, Blaine Harvey, Arielle Haut, Adele Helmers, Tevin Jackson, Lydia Kim, Christopher Lo, Anna Mouraleva, Hugo Nakashima-Brown, Francis Park, Jennifer Park, Nellie Robinson, Hyeong Geun Song, Kathleen Tess Spalty, Sixiao Tang, Erin Terui, Stephanie Wang, Rosrena Wong, Weiwei Zhou.

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  Wish You Were Here, Hiroshige (2014)

  Theory & History of Art & Design Department and Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

  "As if responding to the call of the exhibition title ...(someone in the class sensed the artist’s personal invitation), a group of RISD students undertook a virtual journey through space and time to Edo period Japan. For a duration of a semester the entire class plunged directly into the midst of the Tokaido world, mixing with all kinds of travelers and local residents, learning their customs and manners, trying out various travel modes and road-side services, exploring every bend of the road, in winter and summer, at dawn and dusk, in sunshine and violent storm. ...

  “Wish you were here,” is an exclamation of a traveler overwhelmed by the new sights and desiring to share the excitement with those of kindred spirit. The class that authored this project enthusiastically addresses these words to the exhibition’s visitors and catalog readers." -- Foreword, Wish You Were Here, Hiroshige

  Contributing Authors

  Annie Bai, Hanjie Bao, Shannon N. Crawford, Yue Meredith Du, Emily G. Fang, Jordan Hu, Haesoo Ji, Alexandra Ju, Chae Hyun Kim, Yi Bin Liang, Jacqueline Lin, Tiara F. Little, Hanyu Liu, Alexander Mattaway, Devyn Park, Jimin Park, Mina Park, Jacob Reeves, Jonathan Rinker, Joseph Sands, Karnth Sombatsiri, Rachel Whitely, Chaoqun Wang, Therese Tachee Whang, Xiaowei Vica Zhao.

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  Along the Tokaido with Two Brushes (2013)

  Theory & History of Art & Design Department and Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

  "This book is a student version of a scholarly catalog – it was written by RISD students to accompany the Japanese prints’ exhibition they have curated at the RISD Museum as the final project for 2013 spring semester course in art history. The idea of the course was to put emphasis on active learning from objects – not only through looking at the originals and analyzing them during visits to the museum but by trying a hand at various responsibilities of a museum curator. The Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs of the RISD Museum welcomed this experimental course and accommodated the large class with cordial hospitality on several occasions. ...

  It is the hope of the students – authors of this catalog (and of their instructor) that the readers of the book will find its content interesting and useful, furthering understanding of the widely appreciated ukiyo-e prints." -- Foreword, Along the Tokaido with Two Brushes

  Contributing Authors

  Willa Anderson, Yu Ting Cheng, Phakaphol Bom Chinburi, Ju Yeon Julia Choi, Joseph Escobar, Annabeth Faucher, Katie Han, Joon Kee Hong, Meng Kat Jia, Minkyung Mary Kang, Ji Eun Tina Kim, Howard Kyong, Ala Lee, Michelle Lee, Stephanie Low, Tais Mauk, Miranda Monroe, Michelle Perez Villarreal, Nicole Ross, Se Dong Sam Song, Anne Swihart, Chelsea Wang, Katherine Kathy Wu, Shuran Suzanne Wu, Connie Zhao, Ming Zhen.