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I enjoyed an exhibit of Hokusai today. His work was about 1/3 of what was shown. 1/3 was work of his teachers & influencers & Hokusai's own students & artists that he infuenced noticeably; 1/3 was art of Hokusai's contemporaries to work that is done now that is interesting to compare.

Boston's MFA has had a new curator for about 2 years now who follows an overly long t & enure of a stuffy, snobby exclusive type. This new curator is brilliant about teaching, bringing all types of viewers to enjoyment, & so much more. E.g., amongst the prints were a few tea sets, sculptures, a Monet painting, a Winslow Homer. This refreshes the viewers' eyes & the written comments give good reasons for the juxtaposition.....

A few works were of outdoor teahouses w/ great views of Mount Fuji etc. Makes me long for such scenes. I did enjoy some great views w/ great tea in Taiwan a couple of times. It is special to do so.

This runs to July 16. Cheers

I read an interesting review of the exhibit in the NYTimes a little while back (free gift link).

When I was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, they were trying to foster relationships between students and faculty who normally teach upper division and graduate courses by creating a series of courses with enrollment limited to a small number of freshman and sophomore students in each class. I was lucky enough to get into a class on Japanese history and culture with the head of their East Asian Library, Donald Shively, and one of the highlights was viewing original Hokusai prints from their collection. I enjoyed those so much that I wrote one of my class papers about them to have an excuse to go look at more of them. My paper research didn't give me the access to the full-sized originals at that library, but I did spend more hours than the paper justified browsing through many volumes of prints in the library stacks, just because.

I would love to go to the exhibit if I were there....