Kaikodo Journal XXIV Spring 2008

Material Witness

Corresponding to the exhibition held between March 15 and April 11, 2008. 48 Chinese and Japanese paintings; 32 Chinese objects (80 color plates). Preface by Howard Rogers. 316 pages.

Includes the essays:
Steven D. Owyoung:
    “Lu Yu’s Brazier
    Taoist Elements in the T’ang Book of Tea”
K.Y. Ng:
    “Song Dynnasty Black-glazed Tea Bowls from
    the Yulinting Kilns at Mount Wuyi”
Howard Rogers:
    “Lives of the Painters: Sheng Mou
    (ca.1300-ca.1359)”
    “In Their Emperor’s Service:
    Court Painting of the Ming Dynasty”
Mary Ann Rogers:
    “Treasures from the Kingdom of Qian:
    The Mu Family Collection of Painting & Calligraphy”
Hiroko T. McDermott:
    “Art Exhibitions in Mid-Late Meiji Japan
    and Ueno” 

This journal features six essays on subjects ranging from the tea ceremony during the 8th century in China to art sales in Ueno Park in Tokyo during the 19th century.

The first essay is by Steven D. Owyoung, retired Curator of Asian Art at the St. Louis Art Museum, writing about a subject that has occupied him for decades, the Chinese tea-ceremony, especially as that had been codified by Lu Yu during the 8th century in his “Book of Tea.” The second essay, by K.Y. Ng of 
Hong Kong, is also concerned with the 
tea-ceremony but from a more material point of 
view, discussing a fascinating group of wares 
from the Yulinting kilns in Fujian province. 
With decoration in gold and silver painted most 
usually on black-glazed tea-wares, these bowls 
bear material witness to a group of ceramics 
inspired by the poems of Zhu Xi (1130-1200) of 
the later Song dynasty.

Next is an essay by Howard Rogers on Sheng Mou
 (ca. 1300-1359) , a major master of the Yuan 
dynasty about whom very little is recorded in 
written sources. However, his paintings or those 
by immediate followers survive in considerable 
numbers, and these can be used illumine certain 
characteristics of Yuan dynasty painting. Howard also contributed the next essay on court painters of the Ming era, including a brief description of court 
activity during the first reign-era but is expected 
to be mainly useful for the charts in the 
appendix, which list all academy painters as 
well as their immediate disciples known to the author at 
present.

Mary Ann Rogers contributed an important 
article also related to painting of the early Ming era, one outlining the Mu-family collection of paintings as that evolved through several generations, beginning with gifts from the first emperor of the Ming.  Mu Ying, the adopted son of the first emperor, was the founder of the family collection and its good fortune, and his son, Mu Sheng, was also a patron of such consequential court painters as Dai Jin and Shih Rui whose access to the collection had significant implications for their art. Mary Ann also wrote 
in memory of one of her early teachers at SOAS, 
Professor William Watson.

The last essay is by Hiroko T. McDermott, 
who completed her D.Phil dissertation in 2002 
at Oxford University and is now an independent 
researcher specializing in Meiji art history. She 
has here focused on a fascinating subject-the 
largest private sociery of collectors, dealers, and 
artists active during the late 19th-early 20th 
century-and brought to light several important 
aspects of the evolution of Meiji art circles thalt 
have escaped notice in both Japanese and 
Western research. Especially illuminating is her 
discussion of the collaboration between this 
society and the Imperial Household to hold 
numerous exhibitions in a hall built by them in 
Ueno Park-on Imperial land.