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Asian Art Calendar of Events

Thursday, March 28, 2024


Exhibition Public - USA & Canada

20 Dances: Japanese Calligraphy Then and Now

Minneapolis Institute of Art
2400 Third Avenue South,
Minneapolis, USA
Aug 01, 2020 To Jan 02, 2022


Detail: In East Asia, calligraphy has been hailed as the highest of all art forms for more than 15 centuries. It’s not hard to understand why: With more than 80,000 Chinese characters and infinite graphic variations, the expressive potential is unlimited. The results, as seen in this exhibition, speak for themselves. Each work is a unique expression of the artist’s personality, offering a glimpse into the culture that held calligraphy in such high esteem.

The Japanese writing system was adopted from Chinese characters; given the Japanese reverence for Chinese artistic traditions, these works explore the full range of scripts possible with these characters: seal script (tensho), running script (gyosho), cursive script (sosho), clerical script (reisho), and standard script (kaisho). Calligraphy’s emphasis on movement and timing suggests dancing, and each script has its own rhythm, from the formal strictness of seal script to the wild dance of cursive writing.

This exhibition will be presented in two rotations: Rotation 1: August 1, 2020 – June 6, 2021. Rotation 2: June 19, 2021 – January 2, 2022.

Phone No.: 18886422787
Contact Email: [email protected]
Site URL: https://new.artsmia.org/exhibition/20-dances-japanese-calligraphy-then-and-now

Maki Ryōkō, 1787–1833, Lu Tong’s Tea Song, 19th century (detail)
Maki Ryōkō, 1787–1833, Lu Tong’s Tea Song, 19th century (detail)
hanging scroll; ink on silk
Gift of Stephen Addiss and Audrey Yoshiko Seo, 2013.63.19.

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