Description
A cleverly designed book about Katsushika Hokusai's The Sazaidō of Gohyakurakanji and James McNeill Whistler's Variations in Flesh Colour and Green – The Balcony, that includes drawing, collage, coloring and press-out activities. With a presentation that divides the book into two equal parts, A Tale of Two Balconies investigates the elements that make each of these artworks—both in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art—unique. Exploring the depicted locations of each (in Edo Japan and Victorian England) enables deeper insight as authors Kit Brooks and Katherine Roeder examine the idea of the balcony itself as a construct at once both private and public—creating a view and juxtaposing the different cultural domains both within and beyond the balcony railing.
This stunning book is double-fronted, so readers can begin reading from either side. A carefully-designed center section encourages readers to engage with the themes of perspective and recollection through their own art-making activities—collage, drawing and coloring, even building a pop-out Hokusai diorama and Victorian Whistler toy theater.
Museum Story
The National Museum of Asian Art is a global resource for understanding Asian arts, cultures, and societies and their intersection with the United States. Opened in 1923 as the country's first national art museum, it now stewards one of the world's best collections of Asian art, which date from antiquity to the present, from China, Japan, Korea, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Ancient Near East, and the Islamic world (including Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa). The museum also holds an important array of 19th- and early 20th-century American art of the Aesthetic Movement.
Details
- Paperback
- 164 pages, 100 color illustrations
- 10" x 9"
- Written by Kit Brooks and Katherine Roeder
