Join us on this virtual tour to explore themes, symbolism, and techniques through closely looking at ten highlights including paintings, calligraphy, and decorative arts on view in the museum’s Korean gallery. The tour was narrated by curatorial assistant William Neer, and produced by Travis Fullerton, Director of Imaging Resources, VMFA, in 2021.

Producing the Picturesque: Watercolors and Collaborative Prints by Kawase Hasui

Kawase Hasui (1883–1957) was the most significant Japanese woodblock artist of the 20th century, designing around six hundred print compositions over the course of his career. Hasui’s print designs display nostalgia for traditional Japanese culture and scenery in the midst of the country’s rapid modernization. He began creating landscape compositions for the print publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō in 1918, and together the pair embarked on an artistic partnership that would span more than 40 years. In the making of shin-hanga (new prints), which was a collaboration of artist, block carver, printer, and publisher, this partnership between Hasui and Watanabe culminated in picturesque representations of Japanese landscapes that were successfully circulated locally and abroad. 

Gentle Contact

Born in Hangzhou, southern China, Lu Jianjun studied oil paintings at Shandong Fine Art College in 1986 and at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1996. After moving to San Francisco in 1999, Lu made several trips throughout the United States and Europe, where he viewed paintings by European masters in person for the first time. Gentle Contact depicts a young woman dressed in traditional clothing, sitting on a wooden chair, surrounded by traditional Chinese furniture and antique objects, such as a porcelain jar and jewelry. All this recalls the artist’s childhood visit to his mother’s hometown in southern China. The domestic details, rich color palette, and light and dark contrast reveal Lu’s classical training in oil painting and the inspiration of Flemish and Dutch artists. The sitter’s elongated hands and fingers suggest the influence of European Mannerism, an anticlassical style that emphasized idealized features.