More lacquer …

Trained from the age of eleven, first as a lacquerer and later as a painter, Shibata Zeshin became nineteenth-century Japan's foremost lacquer artist. His extensive body of work spans nearly the entire century and includes inro, netsuke, tiered boxes, trays, screens, and panels. A superb technician he studied hundreds of different lacquer finishes, reviving some techniques that had not been used since the sixteenth or seventeenth century and creating some of his own. He used a wide variety of different materials to create images in lacquer, such as crushed mother-of-pearl to depict birds flying and gold powder (makie) for slender grasses. He also simulated bronze, pewter, rust, and various woods on lacquer. His revival of the blue wave (seigaiha-nuri) was accomplished by thickening lacquer with egg white or clay and applying it to a surface and then combing it with a bamboo brush to give the appearance of waves or some other pattern. He even developed a technique that made lacquer pliable enough to paint on paper and silk scrolls that could then be rolled up without harming the surface--a process now lost.

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Zeshin spent his whole life studying the ancient techniques and preserving them; at the same time he was able to take the earlier traditional and naturalistic styles to more subtle and sophisticated levels. Besides capturing poetic imagery and astonishing atmosphere in his work, Zeshin was also capable of wonderful playfulness and wit.

Catherine and Thomas Edson, who have collected Zeshin's work over the last thirty years, now have what is described as the largest and finest private collection of his work in this country. Fifty-four masterpieces from this collection are on view in a traveling exhibition, The Genius of Shibata Zeshin: Japanese Masterworks from the Catherine and Thomas Edson Collection, which will open on February 17 at the San Antonio Museum of Art in Texas.

Providing a context for the artistic influences that informed this artist's vision, as well as examples of the works by those he influenced, is a concurrent supporting exhibition at the San Antonio Museum called The World of Zeshin. The main exhibition will later move to other locations (for future venues consult Calendar). A fully illustrated catalogue by Sebastian Izzard, the curator of the show, is available by telephoning 210-978-8147.

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COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning