The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Japanese culture on 400 wood block prints on display

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 06, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Japanese culture on 400 wood block prints on display

Staff Reporter

CHENNAI: Ukiyo-e hanga in Japanese is all about the floating transient world in picture transcribed on wood block prints. Over 400 replicas of these wood block prints depicting the culture of Japan are on display at an exhibition at Lalit Kala Akademi.

Yoshiaki Kodaki, Consul-General of Japan, who inaugurated the exhibition, said even though they were replicas, it was an amazing idea that contributed to an understanding of Japan.

He said the ABK AOTS Dosokai, Tamil Nadu Centre, which had organised the exhibition, had been steadily working to promote India-Japan relations through a variety of activities. Japanese language classes, cultural programmes and quizzes, origami and ikebana classes, photograph exhibitions and Japanese film shows were a few examples.

Workshops

Mr. Kodaki said a series of workshops conducted by the Dosokai on "kaizen" or 5S movements in housekeeping were becoming popular in Chennai. "Originally, `Ukiyo' meant the present in eternity.

Ukiyo-e painting, mainly wood block print, is one of the Japanese traditional democratic arts which first appeared during the Edo period in the latter half of the 17th century and is popular even today in Japan," Mr. Kodaki said adding that it was a product of collaboration between an artist, publisher, wood block carver and printer although the work was almost always accredited only to the artist.

M.R. Ranganathan, chairman of ABK-AOTS Dosokai, Tamil Nadu Centre, said the exhibition, held till November 8 between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m., had scenes from theatre, portraits of famous persons, actors and sumo wrestlers, historical themes, landscapes, birds and flowers.

S. Dhinakara Sundar, an artist who has taught painting at a Japanese University in Kyoto, has done a few wood block prints on display at the exhibition.

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