If you happen to be in Tokyo between April 3d and April 5th and have some spare time, you should check out Art Fair Tokyo 2009.  Most of the exhibits are more focused on contemporary art, but there are four booths that I think you should visit that are antique based.  I will quickly list the vendors of interest and briefly describe what you will see.

Shouun Oriental Art: Booth D11.  Artworks from the Jomon to Edo era.  This should be super cool.

Mita Arts Gallery: Booth E06.  Woodblock prints from the Edo to Meiji era.

Gallery Kono: Booth D01.  Early Imari and Kakiemon Porcelain as well as examples of Maki-e lacquer.

Tannaka: Booth D13.  Pottery from the Kamakura and Muromachi eras; Tamba-yaki, Tokoname-yaki, Shigaraki-yaki.  As well as Noh artifacts; costumes, masks, and instruments.

There might be other exhibitors showing antiques, but these were the ones I found as I went through the exhibitor list which is extensive.  Many have links to their home pages, so feel free to peruse them to see if anything else piques your interest (click here).  You’ve got 2 weeks to book your flight, so check your calender, it looks like a huge exhibit not to be missed.

You might have noticed that I’ve been a little negligent in my posts lately. So I figured it was about time to get the ball rolling again, and what could be better than a nice Yatate to give that ball a push. Unfortunately, as crafty as the Japanese are, there is no digital version yet available; so I must use my QWERTY keyboard to write this post. I hope you don’t mind.

Traditionally, writing utensuls were separate items, and preparation was a timely process,. You had your brush (fude), and an ink stick (sumi) which you ground upon your ink stone (suzuri) till you got the right consistency. But during the Kamakura era (1185-1333), things changed. Someone figured out that if you put some cotton in a box (sumi tsubo) you could keep wet ink around, like the Western inkwell. Someone also decided that if you made the box longer, you could also store some brushes. Over time the design was modified, the ink box got deeper and the brush area narrowed, giving birth to the Yatate (which also later metamorphed into various forms). Depicted above is the most common form which could simply be stuffed into the obi (sash) for transport.

As a craftsman, I came to know about Yatate because I had the woodworking version, known simply as Sumitsubo. Consisting of an inkwell attached to a spool of string with a pin on the end. You pull the string through the inkwell, attach the pin to the end of a piece of wood and stretch the string across to the other end. With a little tug you snap the string and create a line on your workpiece. Thus you have the Japanese equivalent of the Western chalk line, depicted below. Cool huh?

I thought I would stay on the topic of large protuberances started in the last post, and I do mean large. Here are two more examples of extreme olfactory organs, this time in the form of Baku, nightmare-eating chimera with an elephant’s trunk, rhinoceros eyes, an ox tail, and tiger’s paws. Purported with the ability to protect against evil and pestilence, it made sense that these were included in classical Shinto and Buddhist temple architecture; what better way to keep away crop ravaging insect invasions and village pillaging Ronin, than by praying at a temple protected by these deities. The first example is huge, making me wonder what temple this came from and why it was dismantled. Measuring approximately 5′ 3″ (l) x 1′ 1-3/4″ (w) x 1′ 9-5/8″ (h), this thing is almost as big as I am. If you click the image you can see in other images the pinned kone hozo (haunch tenon) joint used to hold this sucker up. Knowing a little about Japanese joinery I would have thought this to be held up with a more elaborate system due to it’s size, but I guess if it’s ornamental and not structural, all you need to do is hold up it’s own weight. Plus it looks as if it was locked in on top somewhat by some form of beam, so that would take some strain off. The second piece is large as well, though not as extreme, measuring in at 2′ 5-1/2″ (l) x 1′ 2-5/8″ (w) x 1″ 6-7/8″ (h), with a more readily identifiable elephant shnozz. Due to the manner in which these Baku are depicted you can place their age anywhere from the Kamakura era to the early Edo era, upwards of 400 years or more. Needless to say, I think the first guy is cute and wish he could come and stay at my house.