Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Striking Chords Ii: Music In Ukiyo-E Prints (2022), Theory & History Of Art & Design Department, Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

Ukiyo-e Prints Course | Exhibition Catalogs

"The theme of music in ukiyo-e prints has been explored by the RISD art history students for two semesters (fall 2021 and spring 2022) in a hands-on curatorial format. The resulting exhibition Striking Chords: Music in Ukiyo-e Prints, is on view at the RISD Museum from February through July 2022.

The spring semester project is virtual. However, the approach is similar – to comprehensively study music-related prints in the collection of the RISD Museum and to share the findings with interested audiences, albeit in digital format.

Nineteen prints have been selected. In the exhibition’s virtual space, they are displayed according …

Striking Chords: Music In Ukiyo-E Prints (2021), Theory & History Of Art & Design Department, Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

Ukiyo-e Prints Course | Exhibition Catalogs

"The book “Striking Chords: music in ukiyo-e prints” is a student version of a scholarly catalog that accompanies the RISD Museum’s ukiyo-e prints exhibition of the same title. ... This exhibition is a culmination of an ukiyo-e art history course taught at RISD in the fall of 2021. The project was generously accommodated by the RISD Museum. With the help of Wai Yee Chiong, Associate Curator of Asian Art, fifteen prints were selected from the collection of the RISD Museum. For the exhibition’s online component, which is still under construction, additional prints were chosen – two more from the RISD …

Marching Through The Floating World: Processions In Ukiyo-E Prints (2020), Theory & History Of Art & Design Department, Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

Ukiyo-e Prints Course | Exhibition Catalogs

"Marching through the Floating World is a book that accompanies a student curated virtual exhibition of the same title. This exhibition is dedicated to images of processions in ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

Ukiyo-e or “pictures of the floating world” was a vibrant style of urban art that flourished in Japan in the 17th- 19th century, predominantly in the form of mass-produced woodcuts. Steeped in everyday pleasurable pastimes of townspeople, ukiyo-e prints reflected contemporary culture to its fullest, whether fact or fiction, often the two amalgamated in a witty way.

Processions constituted a noticeable theme in ukiyo-e prints as they were an …

Asakusa ~ Gateway To The Floating World (2019), Theory & History Of Art & Design Department, Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

Ukiyo-e Prints Course | Exhibition Catalogs

"Asakusa, a bustling district of Japan’s capital, emerged as a heart of city life during the Edo period (1603-1868). Its popularity continued after Edo was renamed Tokyo in 1868 soon after the beginning of the Meiji era. ...

Thus, Asakusa came to function as a physical and metaphorical path to and site of ukiyo – ‘the floating world,’ an Edo period term, referring to the modern habits and aspirations of townspeople. The notion of ukiyo embraced the lifestyle of city dwellers, their pleasure-seeking, vanity and devotion, intellectual sophistication and playfulness. All this was captured with remarkable exactitude in the ‘pictures …

Boating In The Floating World: Ukiyo-E Prints (2018), Theory & History Of Art & Design Department, Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

Ukiyo-e Prints Course | Exhibition Catalogs

"The student-curated exhibition “Boating in the Floating World” focuses on images of boats in ukiyo-e prints as represented in some works from the collection of the RISD Museum. Boats were occasionally depicted in the 18th century celebrity-focused figurative genres. Fairly often they appeared in bijinga – images of beauties, rarely in yakusha-e – portraits of kabuki theater actors, sometimes in compositions derived from literature, history or lore. Nautical motifs became much more pronounced from 1830s with the powerful upsurge of the landscape genre that is believed to have been triggered by the increasingly available Berlin blue – a non-fugitive artificial …

Sukima: Vertical Views Of The Floating World (2017), Theory & History Of Art & Design Department, Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

Ukiyo-e Prints Course | Exhibition Catalogs

"Sukima is a Japanese word for a crack in a door, a narrow space that opens up when the panels of the sliding doors are pushed to the sides. ... You’ve seen enough to electrify your imagination and let it complete the picture. This is what happens when you look at a long and narrow ukiyo-e print in a pillar format – hashira-e. Or perhaps this partial sight only unleashes your curiosity and, craving a fuller view, you expand the narrow slit and can now enjoy broader vistas replete with details. For such cases ukiyo-e designers came up with …

Earthly Pleasures: Bounty In Ukiyo-E Prints (2015), Theory & History Of Art & Design Department, Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

Ukiyo-e Prints Course | Exhibition Catalogs

"Earthly Pleasures or, broader, nature’s riches and man, is a topic for an exhibition project of the ukiyo-e prints curatorial course taught at RISD in the Fall Semester of 2015. When deciding on this subject matter we were curious to see how the urban art of ukiyo-e with its focus on figurative representation of celebrities dealt with the nature theme, essential for Japanese culture and all-pervading in Japanese classical visual arts and literature. Did ukiyo-e artists include images of nature in their compositions? If yes, then who, when and how? It is with this quest in mind that a …

Wish You Were Here, Hiroshige (2014), Theory & History Of Art & Design Department, Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

Ukiyo-e Prints Course | Exhibition Catalogs

"As if responding to the call of the exhibition title ...(someone in the class sensed the artist’s personal invitation), a group of RISD students undertook a virtual journey through space and time to Edo period Japan. For a duration of a semester the entire class plunged directly into the midst of the Tokaido world, mixing with all kinds of travelers and local residents, learning their customs and manners, trying out various travel modes and road-side services, exploring every bend of the road, in winter and summer, at dawn and dusk, in sunshine and violent storm. ...

“Wish you were here,” …

The Living Torrents: Hokusai's "Journey Around The Waterfalls Of Various Provinces" (2014), Theory & History Of Art & Design Department, Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

Ukiyo-e Prints Course | Exhibition Catalogs

"This book invites its readers to join RISD WS 2014 Japanese Prints class for an edifying expedition to Japan’s eight waterfalls portrayed by Katsushika Hokusai, an ukiyo-e preeminent artist, in his masterpiece print series “A Journey to the Waterfalls of Various Provinces.” In fact, this expedition is an academic endeavor undertaken by a collective of students who tried their hand at curating a museum exhibition as their art history course project. ..." -- Foreword, The Living Torrents: Hokusai's " Journey Around the Waterfalls of Various Provinces"

Contributing Authors

Jane Bak, Graham Bessellieu, Amy Chen, Julie Chon, Sofia Diaz de la …

Veronese’S Goblets: Glass Design And The Civilizing Process, Pascale Rihouet, Theory & History Of Art & Design Department

Faculty & Librarian Work

Taking its cue from Veronese’s lavish Wedding at Cana (1563), this article explores the meanings of fine and ordinary glassware, focusing on the performative value of Renaissance goblets. Drinking vessels are analyzed here as tools for the gradual transformation of human behavior, or the ‘Civilizing Process’ that sociologist Norbert Elias expounded. In the mid-sixteenth century, new designs for fine glasses supported and shaped the proper conduct expected of guests and servants in banquets. Iconographic sources such as the exquisite wine cups depicted by Veronese, didactic literature and the objects themselves document the kind of challenges and expectations that handling glass …

Along The Tokaido With Two Brushes (2013), Theory & History Of Art & Design Department, Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

Ukiyo-e Prints Course | Exhibition Catalogs

"This book is a student version of a scholarly catalog – it was written by RISD students to accompany the Japanese prints’ exhibition they have curated at the RISD Museum as the final project for 2013 spring semester course in art history. The idea of the course was to put emphasis on active learning from objects – not only through looking at the originals and analyzing them during visits to the museum but by trying a hand at various responsibilities of a museum curator. The Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs of the RISD Museum welcomed this experimental course and …

Model Of A Funerary Boat, Risd Museum, Peter Dean, Peter Johnson

Channel

During the funeral, the deceased took a last earthly journey, traveling by boat to the cemetaries on the west bank of the Nile. The next voyage then began: a spiritual pilgrimmage to Abydos, the religious center and burial place of the god Osiris. For this reason, wooden model boats were often placed within tombs as substitutes for large-scale vessels in the afterlife. This model boat mimicked papyrus funerary barks. The wedjat-eyes painted on the hull were meant to guide the vessel safely through the perilous journey to the afterlife. 2100-1900 BCE

The Brilliant Line, Emily Peters, Evelyn Lincoln, Andrew S. Raftery

Books

Renaissance engravings are objects of exquisite beauty and incomparable intricacy that are composed entirely of lines. Artists began using this intaglio process in Europe as early as 1430. This captivating catalogue focuses on the height of the medium, from 1480 to 1650, when engravers made dramatic and rapid visual changes to engraving technique as they responded to the demands of reproducing artworks in other media. The Brilliant Line follows these visual transformations and offers new insight into the special inventiveness and technical virtuosity of Renaissance and Baroque (Early Modern) engravers. The three essays discuss how engraving’s restrictive materials and the …

Alternative Traditions In The Contemporary Arts: Subjugated Knowledges And The Balance Of Power, Estera Milman, Ken Friedman, Stephen Perkins, Owen Smith, Special Collections, Fleet Library

Art History

"This publication marks the twentieth anniversary of The University of Iowa's Alternative Traditions in the Contemporary Arts (ATCA) project ..."--title page verso. Metal spiral binding. Author is RISD Alumna. Fleet Library at RISD Alumni Collection. Curated title for Fleet Library Special Collections exhibition By Hand: Women & Books Exhibit fall, 2021.

Offset Magazine, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Offset magazine had a single issue published on March 1, 1997. It was an art zine with photographs, drawings and literature created by RISD students.

Mixed Media May 20, 1996, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Mixed Media began as the student publication Your Name Here. The May 20, 1996 issue includes articles, poems, drawings, student events, photos, film stills and comics. Also a calendar of events including Commencement and campus activities for RISD students are in this issue.

Mixed Media May 6, 1996, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Mixed Media began as the student publication Your Name Here. The May 6, 1996 issue includes a calendar of events for May 6-May 12, 1996, letters to the editor, comics, poems, photos, drawings. The RISD endowment is described and also RISD faculty evaluations.

Mixed Media April 22, 1996, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Mixed Media began as the student publication Your Name Here. The April 22, 1996 issue includes an article about diversity at RISD. Also included are poems, drawings, photographs, comics and letters to the editor.

Your Name Here April 8, 1996, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Your Name Here was a student publication begun in the spring of 1996. The April 8, 1996 issue includes an article about the location of RISD Commencement. Also included are recipes, poems, photographs and comics and a contest to name the student newspaper.

Your Name Here March 25, 1996, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Your Name Here was a student publication begun in the spring of 1996. The March 25, 1996 issue has an article about the RISD faculty contract talks and space issues at RISD. It also includes poems, drawings, photographs and comics.

Juice May 24, 1993, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Juice was a short-form student publication primarily intended to publicize upcoming events occurring on or around campus. The May 24, 1993 issues includes information about RISD Commencement receptions and student shows for the end of the Spring 1993 semester. Final crits and exhibitions are also listed.

Juice May 10, 1993, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Juice was a short-form student publication primarily intended to publicize upcoming events occurring on or around campus. The issue of May 10, 1993 includes listings for student exhibitions, lectures and a film and video series by women.

Juice May 3, 1993, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Juice was a short-form student publication primarily intended to publicize upcoming events occurring on or around campus. The issue for May 3 lists events from May 3-May 8, 1993. Music, films and art exhibits of student and professional artists are listed.

Juice April 12, 1993, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Juice was a short-form student publication primarily intended to publicize upcoming events occurring on or around campus. Lectures, films and events relating to RISD students were listed for the week of April 12-18, 1993. An article from the Village Voice about the performance artist Karen Finley is included.

Juice April 5, 1993, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Juice was a short-form student publication primarily intended to publicize upcoming events occurring on or around campus. Women's Voices and Visions, a film and video series was listed. Lectures, films and evens related to RISD students were also listed.

Juice March 21, 1993, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Juice was a short-form student publication primarily intended to publicize upcoming events occurring on or around campus. RISD's 116th birthday was celebrated on March 22. Lectures, films, and events that related to RISD students were also listed.

Juice March 14, 1993, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Juice was a short-form student publication primarily intended to publicize upcoming events occurring on or around campus. Concerts, exhibitions, and events listed took place on the RISD campus and throughout Providence from March 14 until March 21, 1993.

Juice March 7, 1993, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Juice was a short-form student publication primarily intended to publicize upcoming events occurring on or around campus. The issue for March 7, 1993 includes listings of racial diversity lectures and other lectures, art exhibitions, concerts and films that took place in the Providence area and on the RISD campus during the week of March 8 through March 14, 1993.

Juice March 1, 1993, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Juice was a short-form student publication primarily intended to publicize upcoming events occurring on or around campus. The issue for March 1, 1993 includes information about RISD Cabaret performances, art exhibitions, concerts and other events that took place on the RISD campus and in the Providence area for the week of March 1 through March 6, 1993.

Juice February 21, 1993, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Juice was a short-form student publication primarily intended to publicize upcoming events occurring on or around campus. Concerts, art exhibitions, films and other events on the RISD campus and the Providence area were listed.