Isabella Jin is a writer for the features section of the Daily. She is a first-year at SMFA and can be reached at Isabella.Jin@tufts.edu
The spectacle of the New York Sales auctions at Sotheby’s last November, which were headlined by Gustav Klimt’s “Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer” (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, 1914–16), sold for $236.4 million, is a great opportunity to introduce East Asian artworks that have set records at international auctions.
Sitting next to the lush greens of President’s Lawn is Tisch Library, a building we all know and love that serves as a center of academic learning and scholastic research at Tufts. Students utilize the library for a wide range of purposes, which include creating in the Digital Design Studio, meeting group members in Tower Cafe and finishing a last-minute homework assignment in one of the reading rooms.
In the last column, we explored how Hokusai’s “The Great Wave” incorporated Western techniques and came to symbolize artistic exchange between East and West. In this article, we will examine how the print evolved into a global phenomenon, becoming the foremost cultural motif of Japan and East Asia.
There’s much splendor surrounding graduation: the glitz and glamor of the senior gala, the intimate community bonding at the baccalaureate and, of course, the proud walk across the stage to receive one’s hard-earned diploma. Fifth-year students at Tufts have the opportunity to attend most of these events alongside their classmates. Unlike their peers, however, they also carry the knowledge that they will return to campus next year, while most of their friends enter a new stage of life.
For centuries, the East and West have existed as what seem to be distinct entities — so different in culture and ideology that the art they produced reflected those stark differences. While Western art focused extensively on perspective and individual expressionism, East Asian art maintained its historical lineage of searching for “essence” in life and depicting the philosophical ideas of Buddhism and Daoism. However, as suited to the adventurous spirit of the great explorers, cultural exchange between the two was an inevitable historical product that brought excitement and revolution.
Situated among the Boston MFA’s proud Asian collection is a dimly lit exhibition hall whose inconspicuous presence belies the crowds of visitors frequenting its displays. To protect the fragility of the Xuan paper and silk scrolls, as well as to ensure the ink doesn’t fade, each work is spotlighted under a single warm light. However, these soft beige and brown illuminations do not dull the vibrancy of Qi’s colors nor detract from the eccentricity of his brushstrokes.
A group of faculty members at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University has launched a “Save the SMFA” campaign, which lists a variety of grievances and demands regarding changes at SMFA.
