Four Day Washington DC Museums Tour

US Postal
Museum
Full-scale displays: Model A Ford delivery truck, Biplane mail carriers, Stagecoach carrier, Mailman diorama.
Modern Art Map of the National Mall, National Art Gallery,
East Building Modern Art, Many Calder mobiles,
Various works that appealed to me,
including Drip art by Jackson Pollock
American History
Museum
Map of The National Mall, Archie Bunker's chair,
First U.S. railroad steam engine, Monster electric motor,
Porter-Allen steam engine, Unaflow steam engine
Air and Space
Museum
Map of The National Mall, Viking Lander, German V-1 Missile, Apollo Lunar Module, Hubble Test Telescope, Joint U.S and Soviet space lab, Pioneering Aircraft, U.S.S Enterprise Poster (Harry's ship)

 
Home Page

Washington DC -- National Gallery of Art
Map of the National Mall, National Gallery of Art,
East Building Modern Art, Many Calder mobiles,
Various works that appealed to me,
including Drip art by Jackson Pollock.


April 13, 2012


Posted July 10, 2012,  ©2012 Herbert E. Lindberg

The next three days we walked from the hotel to museums on The National Mall.  It was about a mile each way so our legs were pretty shot in the museums. Oh well, I guess we should be thankful we're touring at all in our 80's. We started first with the Modern Art wing (East Building in the map below) of the National Gallery of Art. Then we went on to the West Building, which had more classical paintings from around the world.  There was also a fantastic special exhibition of Japanese Art: Colorful Realm: Japanese Bird-and-Flower Paintings by Itō Jakuchū (1716–1800, 30-scroll set, no photography allowed, of course).  Colors were still vivid and beautiful.  It was worth the trip just to see these (see the article at the bottom of this page, copied at the above link).  I took pictures only in the East Building.

 

Museums on the National Mall


Calder works


Intriguing 


The building itself is a work of art, with excellent lighting.


A 3D work


Another angle to help see the 3D in these 2D pictures.


This also extends out from the frame.


Woman on wheels


Closer view


Abstract flower


Lady in bronze


This wall hanging filled an entire room.


Drip art by Jackson Pollock, the first time I've seen one in person. Size: about 5ft x 4ft.


More Calder -- I needed, but didn't have, my SLR wide angle lens to capture the domed ceiling filled with these.


Kinda fun.


People mover from galleries to restaurant and store.


Fountain between East and West Buildings.
More conventional art in the East Building was great but I took no pictures (had only my little camera).


Statue on Constitution Ave. NW as we walked back to the Phoenix Park Hotel.


I include below the following article from the Colorful Realm link because it soon may be taken off line by the National Galery of Art.  The pictures below might also be taken down but the text is local and will remain.

 

Colorful Realm: Japanese Bird-and-Flower Paintings by Itō Jakuchū (1716–1800)
March 30–April 29, 2012

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery. Please follow the links below for related online resources or visit our current exhibitions schedule.

Related Resources

Submit a Haiku Inspired by Itō Jakuchū's Colorful Realm of Living Beings

Download the Family Activity Guide (PDF, 188k)

Watch a Video
Press Conference Highlights

Attend a Film
Japanese Divas

Press Materials

Image: Itō Jakuchu, Peonies and Butterflies (J. Shakuyaku guncho zu), c. 1757 (Horeki 7), ink and color on silk, Sannomaru Shozokan (The Museum of the Imperial Collections), The Imperial Household AgencyCelebrating the centennial of Japan's gift of cherry trees to the nation's capital, this exhibition features one of Japan's most renowned cultural treasures, the 30-scroll set of bird-and-flower paintings by Itō Jakuchū. Titled Colorful Realm of Living Beings (J. Dōshoku sai-e; c. 1757–1766), these extraordinary scrolls are being lent to the National Gallery of Art by the Imperial Household. Their exhibition here—for one month only—provides a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: not only is it the first time all 30 paintings will be on view in the United States, but it is also the first time any of the works will be seen here after their six-year-long restoration.

Colorful Realm stands as the most dynamic and comprehensive—yet meditative and distilled—expression of the natural world in all of Japanese art. Synthesizing numerous East Asian traditions of bird-and-flower painting, the set depicts each of its 30 subjects in wondrously meticulous detail, but in such a way as to transcend surface appearances and capture the otherwise ineffable, vital essence of the cosmos, the Buddha nature itself. To present the full significance of Colorful Realm, the exhibition and its catalogue reunite this masterpiece with Jakuchū's triptych of the Buddha Śākyamuni from the Zen monastery Shōkokuji in Kyoto. Jakuchū had donated both works to the monastery, which displayed them in a large temple room during Buddhist rituals.

Recent conservation of Colorful Realm has generated an entirely new awareness of the material profile of the set and the technical means by which Jakuchū created each scroll. Drawing upon these findings as well as the most recent research on Jakuchū's life and cultural environment, this exhibition offers a multifaceted understanding of the artist's virtuosity and experimentalism as a painter—one who not only applied sophisticated chromatic effects but also masterfully rendered the richly symbolic world in which he moved.

The earliest of the 30 scrolls, Peonies and Butterflies, combines two subjects that enjoyed great popularity in East Asian pictorial traditions. On the one hand, the peony flower was likened to both feminine beauty and prosperity. It became the preferred garden flower of the imperial and aristocratic elite during China's Tang dynasty (618–907) and at the court of Emperor Xuanzong in particular; in East Asian literary traditions Li Bai's verse likening the beauty of Xuanzong's favorite consort Yang Guifei (719–756) to a peony cemented the flower's association with feminine beauty. Meanwhile, its full and gorgeous appearance lent itself to uncomplicated associations with affluence and good fortune. The butterfly also served as an auspicious symbol, though its popularity was equally attributable to its appearance in one of the most famous parables in early Chinese thought: Zhuangzi's dream of a butterfly. According to this parable, the legendary sage Zhuangzi dreams that he is a carefree yellow butterfly. Upon awakening, however, "he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi." Paintings of butterflies inevitably invoked the oneiric setting and queried selfhood of the Zhuangzi anecdote in most East Asian contexts and particularly in Jakuchū's circle of erudite Sinophile monks, scholars, and merchants. While visually opulent, Peonies and Butterflies also suggests the uncertainty of a just-awoken dreamer who momentarily confuses reverie with reality.

Careful study of the painting's pigmentation points to Jakuchū's remarkable distillation and intensification of traditional East Asian coloration techniques. Different grades of opacity and transparency are achieved in the butterflies, flowers, stems, and leaves by varying the use of mineral and vegetal pigments, occasionally layering them one on top of another and adding a sublayer of color on the back of the silk. This complex stratigraphy of colors results in a convincing imbrication of the motifs in their surroundings. Indeed, when Jakuchū's cultural and spiritual mentor Daiten (1719–1801) encountered the painting in 1760, he titled it "Beautiful Mist and Fragrant Wind" (Enka kōfū), suggesting that the real subject here was not the peonies and butterflies, but the conceptual atmosphere that enveloped them, the invisible ether within which they swayed and glided.

Sponsor: The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, The Imperial Household Agency, and Nikkei Inc., in association with the Embassy of Japan.

It has been made possible through the generous support of Toyota, Nikkei Inc., Airbus, the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, and The Exhibition Circle of the National Gallery of Art. Additional sponsorship from Japan has been provided by Daikin Industries, Ltd., Ito En, Ltd., Mitsubishi Corporation, and Panasonic Corporation.

The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Schedule: National Gallery of Art, March 30–April 29, 2012

Four Day Washington DC Museums Tour

US Postal
Museum
Full-scale displays: Model A Ford delivery truck, Biplane mail carriers, Stagecoach carrier, Mailman diorama.
Modern Art Map of the National Mall, National Art Gallery,
East Building Modern Art, Many Calder mobiles,
Various works that appealed to me,
including Drip art by Jackson Pollock
American History
Museum
Map of The National Mall, Archie Bunker's chair,
First U.S. railroad steam engine, Monster electric motor,
Porter-Allen steam engine, Unaflow steam engine
Air and Space
Museum
Map of The National Mall, Viking Lander, German V-1 Missile, Apollo Lunar Module, Hubble Test Telescope, Joint U.S and Soviet space lab, Pioneering Aircraft, U.S.S Enterprise Poster (Harry's ship)

 
Home Page

Continue to Museum of American History