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A Love-Letter to the Land of the Rising Sun
For those of us who have never been to Japan, we can only picture the beautiful vista of the Land of the Rising Sun with the help of popular films such as Memoirs of a Geisha, Babel, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Lost in Translation, and The Last Samurai. For me, it was Memoirs of a Geisha which truly began my love affair with Japan. (Although, Tom Cruise did give it his best effort!) A hauntingly beautiful story, love, betrayal, hope, the mystery of the Orient: despite the controversy of a Chinese actress portraying a Japanese geisha, I personally feel that Zhang Ziyi was perfectly cast. To top…
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Seelisches Fernweh – Van Gogh und der Japonismus
Es ist kein Geheimnis, dass Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) nicht in der besten psychischen Verfassung war, jahrelang führte er einen inneren Kampf gegen sich selbst, litt unter Depressionen und Wahnvorstellungen und wurde in eine Nervenheilanstalt eingewiesen. In diesen Zeiten der Qual und teilweise nahe dem Wahnsinn, schuf er einige seiner größten Meisterwerke. Höchst verwunderlich ist darüber hinaus, dass er sich in den 1890er Jahren ausgerechnet einen Künstler zum Vorbild nahm, der gegenteiliger nicht hätte sein können: der im heutigen Tokio geborene gelernte Holzschnittkünstler Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), dessen Kunst wie die traditionelle japanische Kunst im Allgemeinen auf Ruhe, Stärke und inneren Frieden basieren. War van Goghs Faszination für die japanische Kunst…
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Van Gogh: Genius and Covetous?
Vincent Van Gogh: A man of many talents…and many mysteries. Here’s a small list of ‘did you know…?’: That he was a teacher? That he was a missionary? That he was a late-bloomer, artistically? (He didn’t start painting until his late-twenties.) That he was an extremely dedicated worker…he produced around 2,100 artworks in about ten years. That works out to 210 sketches/paintings/watercolours/doodles per year! (If you happen to be in possession of any of them, you’d be guaranteed to be an owner of a valuable piece of art!) That he was named after his stillborn baby brother? That he suffered from mental illness…leading up to the supposed self-inflicted shooting? That…
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