Cute Animals on Japanese Art Pieces

I went to an interesting Japanese art exhibition a few weeks ago. In Ueno Park, I was wandering around and saw many ad posters of an exhibition going on. What caught my eye was the poster of the exhibition Meiji Kogei: Amazing Japanese Art because it had photos of cute animal art pieces. I decided to see them. The exhibition was held at Tokyo University of the Arts next to the park.

 

It was my first time to see Japanese art works directly myself. There were subtle differences compared to Korean and Western art I had seen before. I can't exactly tell what the difference is, but I can definitely say that Japanese people in the Meiji times really liked animals as the model of their works. They made sculptures of bears, snakes, insects, and a dragon. Also, there were birds made of porcelain and monkeys made of gold and wood. They even carved the image of dogs on a steel kettle. 

I liked the 'Three Wise Monkeys' sculpture especially. It has a strange appearance, with one of the monkeys covering its eyes, another covering its ears, and the other one its mouth. I looked into the meaning of it, and the Internet said the monkeys show the virtue of patience. They tell people that being patient is the smartest way to live. I don't agree with this idea, but I liked how delicate, cute and little these monkeys were. It was only about 2.5 cm tall, but even the hair was carved in that tiny sculpture like it's a real monkey.

After watching the exhibition, I bought a 'Ukiyo-e' memo pad at the gift shop. On every page, a cute cat is looking out the window. I wrote some sentences from my 'Basics of Japanese classics' class on it. I have no idea what this means, but it looks as if I have done some serious art work. I like it.