Sekkan (active 1555-1558) Monk Riding Backward on an Ox. Hanging scroll; ink on paper Image: 13 7/8 x 16 7/8 in. The Phil Berg Collection. Photograph © 2010 Museum Associates/LACMA
Cultural News, 2010 November Issue
The Pavilion for Japanese Art at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036.
Museum hours: Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, 12 noon – 8 pm; Friday, 12 noon – 9 pm; Saturday and Sunday, 11 am – 8 pm; Closed Wednesdays.
For further information about Japanese art exhibitions at LACMA, call (323) 857-6565 www.lacma.org
Japanese Painting: The Expressive Brush
October 29, 2010 – February 15, 2011
At LACMA’S Pavilion for Japanese Art an exhibition entitled, “Japanese Painting: The Expressive Brush” explores brushwork as a medium for revealing the human heart. A number of scrolls in this installation represent the art form called zenga, which refers to paintings or calligraphy by Zen monks dating between 1600 and the present.
These paintings are used as meditational devices, as gifts to parishioners in exchange for support, and as graduation gifts from Zen masters to monks who have achieved enlightenment.
Other screens and scrolls are products of the literati school of painters, who in the 18th and 19th centuries followed the tenets of the Chinese wenren (Japanese: bunjin) movement in China. Their paintings expressed an amateur’s approach, countering patronage-oriented painting by professional artists, and emphasizing instead personal cultivation and individual spirit.
