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Recent Acquisitions Releases Press Release Archive |
Quiet Beauty: Fifty Centuries of Japanese Folk Ceramics from the Montgomery Collection May 9–July 18, 2004 Quiet Beauty: Fifty Centuries of Japanese Folk Ceramics from the Montgomery Collection opens at the Tyler Museum of Art on Sunday, May 9 and continues through Sunday, July 18, 2004. The exhibition is organized and circulated by Art Services International of Alexandria, Virginia. The national tour has been sponsored by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, the Drs. Ben and A. Jess Shenson Fund, the Mitsubishi International Corporation, and the Toshiba International Foundation. Major funding for the exhibition at the Tyler Museum of Art has been provided by Vernon and Amy Faulconer of Tyler. TMA Corporate Member Sponsors for the exhibition are Hibbs-Hallmark & Company and King Chevrolet Company of Tyler. Quiet Beauty explores the near-perfect combination of form, color, texture, gesture, and sense of spiritual harmony embodied in Japanese folk ceramics made between 3000 B.C. and 1985. The exhibition is the first outside of Japan to explore this broad range of production. The one hundred objects that will go on view have been selected by Guest Curator Robert Moes, an internationally respected art historian specializing in Japanese folk art. Japan's ceramic history is one of the longest in the world. The earliest Jômon pottery dates back to 10,500 B.C., roughly 4000 years earlier than the oldest known pieces from Egypt or Mesopotamia, and as old as pieces found in China. By the medieval period multiple clusters of kilns situated in the pottery producing villages in various parts of Japan were producing unglazed utilitarian stonewares for local as well as long-distance markets in the urban centers. And in the late 16th century, when the Chinese ceramics production temporarily declined due to political unrest, Japanese kilns in Arita began producing porcelain known as Imari for the European markets. While many ceramic production centers declined and disappeared, it is interesting to note that some survived the vicissitudes of history and are still operating today producing distinct wares that have brought them acclaim many centuries ago. One important tradition in appreciating ceramic craft can be traced back to the tea ceremony ritual in the sixteenth century. The ritualized way of drinking tea was first practiced by monks who had studied Zen philosophy in China and brought it back to Japan. The tea ceremony that evolved out of it was centered on the drinking of whisked green tea out of a ceramic bowl with elaborate procedures and protocols governing the actions of the host who serves the tea and the guests. In the ceremony the tea utensils themselves came to be a focus of contemplation and conversation. While the first generation of Japanese tea masters selected costly imported Chinese utensils, taste soon shifted to simpler wares of very different nature such as humble Korean kitchenware and Japanese peasant wares. The new aesthetics began to emphasize the "beauty" of unadorned, natural materials as opposed to ornate, ostentatious goods. Many of the styles and the associated aesthetic concepts such as wabi and sabi would assimilate into the Japanese folk ceramic vocabulary. It was these aesthetics which placed value on the unadorned, unrefined, irregular, and humble objects that the Japan Folk Crafts (Mingei) Movement in the early twentieth century reclaimed as their own. The Mingei Movement was a response to industrialization and brought back the appreciation and practice of folk craft. Soetsu Yanagi and his colleagues coined the word mingei, which means "the people's art", and by January 1926, had started the movement. Trained as a philosopher with a strong interest in Western art and literature, Yanagi was inspired by the British Arts and Crafts Movement of the 1880s. He also became acquainted with the British etcher and potter Bernard Leach, with whom he established a life-long friendship together with some of the most celebrated Japanese potters of his time. While Leach introduced the ideas espoused by this movement to the Western audience, Yanagi and his group gradually succeeded in reversing the accepted attitude of the general public in Japan into appreciating hand-made objects over factory produced goods. The Mingei Movement led to the formation of large collections of Japanese, Korean, and Okinawan folk art and the opening of a museum in Tokyo devoted to Japanese folk art, which has expanded to comprise seven branches in Japan. Japan is the only country in the world today where quality ceramics are considered fine art, fully equal in stature to paintings, sculpture, and architecture, and where potters enjoy the status of fine artists. THE EXHIBITION Comprising one hundred ceramics spanning five thousand years of Japanese art and history, Quiet Beauty presents a comprehensive survey of technical and artistic developments in folk pottery. It is arranged in chronological order and subdivided by region of production. Included are prehistoric cooking beakers, wine jars, tomb vessels, grinding and mixing bowls, and storage jars. Also displayed are plates, dishes and bowls in stoneware and porcelain, sake bottles and sake flasks, oil-drip plates, sculptural alcove ornaments, and flower-arranging vases. Produced primarily as vernacular ceramics for use by farmers, artisans, and merchants, the objects in the exhibition are astonishing in their wide variety and profound aesthetic impact. Although folk ceramics are by nature generic, a number of pieces to be displayed are rare in being of the highest quality among surviving examples. Especially noteworthy is the Bizen Ware Sake Bottle of the Momoyama Period (1568-1615), considered one of the best of its type in the world. Several famous 20th century potters will be represented including Hamada Shôji, Kinjô Jirô, and Shimaoka Tatsuzô, all of whom have been designated Living National Treasures by the Japanese government. The exhibition's Guest Curator, Robert Moes, has organized more than 15 exhibitions exploring various areas of the field for the Denver Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Asia Society, and the Japan Society. Included among his publications are Auspicious Spirits: Korean Folk Paintings and Related Objects (1983), and Japanese Folk Art: A Triumph of Simplicity (1992). The former Head of the Asian Art Department at the Brooklyn Museum, Mr. Moes was also Guest Curator for the 1995 exhibition MINGEI: Japanese Folk Art from the Montgomery Collection, which traveled to art museums in North America and Europe. THE COLLECTION Jeffrey Montgomery, from whose collection the pieces in Quiet Beauty are drawn, began collecting over 25 years ago and has carefully formed his collection on the ideas and aesthetics of the Mingei Movement. The Montgomery Collection is extraordinary in its scope and, while it is rich in ceramics, it includes comprehensive examples of Japanese folk art in practically every medium to illustrate the breadth of utilitarian objects and to celebrate form as well as function. The Montgomery Collection is one of the best known collections of Japanese arts of daily life outside Japan, and is particularly significant for its high quality. A major catalogue will accompany the exhibition. In addition to individual entries and full-color illustrations of all objects in the exhibition, the publication will include a lengthy text by Robert Moes that traces the development of folk ceramics from prehistory to the present and discusses the primary characteristics of Japanese art. The compelling strength and dignity of the ceramics themselves will be highlighted for both readers of the catalogue and visitors to the exhibition. Tyler Museum of Art members enjoy unlimited free admission to the exhibition. Non-member admission prices are $8 for adults, $5 for seniors and students, and $3 for children (6 and over). |