Sunday, September 07, 2014

Japanese Cultural Centre Toronto

Located on Bloor street, the Japanese Cultural Centre has a library and is close to the ROM. They have rotating art shows and have something to check out. I was there recently and although I was let down that the prints on display were not real woodcuts but poor digital copies, I found they had selected some interesting monster images and made some sketches all the same.

I love the weirdness of this 'Ass face' guy with the balls as nose, you just don't see that. It is interesting to imagine how restrictive western art would have been at the same era.


Sure you have your Aubrey Beardsley but that is pretty underground in its era
.
Ha! I remember my cousin having this picture with a suite of Beardsley images screen printed onto mirrors in his room.

This was a detail from a complex Japanese wood block print, I liked the hand was rising up in the sun rise and a different scale to the other information.



Here is a link to the cultural centre if you want to check them out.