Art & Cultural History

Coming Exhibition: The Great Terracotta Army of China’s First Emperor

“The Great Terracotta Army of China’s First Emperor”

The Great Terracotta Army of China's First Emperor

Who:

Tokyo National Museum

When: Oct. 27, 2015 – February 21, 2016 (Usually open Tuesday through Sunday until 5:00 PM)

Where:

Tokyo National Museum
13-9 Ueno Park, Taito-ku,
Tokyo, 110-8712, Japan

More Information: Here.

About 2,200 years ago, Qin Shi Huang succeeded in unifying China and became its First Emperor. His legacy is preserved in a vast terracotta army, the discovery of which is considered the greatest archeological find of the 20th century, and which continues to arouse wonder and provide new knowledge. With assistance from institutions such as the Shaanxi Cultural Heritage Promotion Center, this exhibition brings together artifacts with connections to the First Emperor while exploring the “everlasting world” of his terracotta army and its mysteries

Take in long-lost, wartime art attributed to Chihiro

“Take in long-lost, wartime art attributed to Chihiro”

by “The Japan News

The Yomiuri ShimbunThree long-lost paintings believed to have been produced by the popular picture book author Chihiro Iwasaki (1918-1974) are on display at her namesake museum in Tokyo.

The works were discovered last year at the Nippon seinenkan (foundation of Japan-youth center) in Tokyo. One of the three works is making its public debut at the ongoing exhibition, titled “Commemorating 70 Years of Non-war — Chihiro’s Wish for Peace,” at the Chihiro Art Museum Tokyo in Nerima Ward.

The discovery was significant because many of the artist’s works created before and during World War II were lost in air raids.

“We want people to think about the war through Chihiro’s works, which were produced at a time when people were not allowed to freely create art,” said a museum official. . . . .

Coming Exhibition: Ornament and Illusion ~ Carlo Crivelli of Venice

“Ornament and Illusion:
Carlo Crivelli of Venice“

Who:

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

When: Oct. 22, 2015 – January 25, 2016 (Hours Vary)

Where:

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
25 Evans Way
Boston, MA 02115

More Information: Here.

Ornament and Illusion is the first monographic exhibition dedicated to Renaissance painter Carlo Crivelli in the United States. The Gardner’s newly conserved Saint George Slaying the Dragon is the touchstone for a two-part installation. The first reunites four of six surviving panels from Crivelli’s Porto San Giorgio altarpiece, of which the Gardner painting is a fragment. The second features 20 of Crivelli’s most important works from Europe and the U.S. Together, they will introduce visitors to the artist’s repertoire of dazzling pictorial effects, and refine each encounter with his bravura illusionism.

British archaeologist aims to pinpoint Nefertiti’s tomb

“British archaeologist aims to pinpoint Nefertiti’s tomb”

by Tony Gamal-Gabriel via “Yahoo News!“

Standing before the majestic gold, ochre and white frescos of Tutankhamun’s tomb, British archaeologist Nicholas Reeves on Monday passionately defended his daring theory that Nefertiti is buried in a secret chamber.

With the help of a sophisticated radar, Reeves aims to prove Nefertiti is buried there in a hidden chamber of the young pharaoh’s underground tomb that long hid the most fabulous treasure ever discovered in Egypt.

Archaeologists have never discovered the mummy of this legendary beauty who played a major political and religious role in the 14th century BC.

Nefertiti actively supported her husband Akhenaten, the pharaoh who temporarily converted ancient Egypt to monotheism imposing the single cult of sun god Aton.

Reeves’s theory is that Nefertiti is buried in a room adjacent to the tomb of Tutankhamun, the son of Akhenaten.

According to Reeves, the boy king, who died unexpectedly at 19, was buried in a rush in an underground burial chamber that was probably not intended for him.

His death would have forced priests to reopen Queen Nefertiti’s tomb 10 years after her death because the young pharaoh’s own had not yet been built, Reeves said at Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, southern Egypt.

In the burial chamber, just a few steps away from the darkened mummy of the boy king who died in 1324 BC after just nine years on the throne, the archaeologist pointed to a fresco representing Tutankhamun and his successor Ay.

– Radar to scan the walls –

Circled by archaeologists and officials from Egypt’s antiquities department, Minister of Antiquities Mamduh al-Damati listened attentively to the expert from the American University of Arizona as Reeves said the frescos in the chamber could conceal two secret doors.

“The theory is a very good theory but it doesn’t mean it’s true. The best theories don’t always work,” he added with caution, in the midst of the Valley of the Kings where on November 29, 1922 another British Egyptologist, Howard Carter, discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb. . . . .

How an illiterate woman wrote love letters to her migrant husband in 1973

“How an illiterate woman wrote love letters to her migrant husband in 1973”

by Annalisa Merelli via “Quartz“

Being far from the people you love is one of the most challenging experiences in life, even with today’s cheap and easy trans-continental video-calls. So one can only imagine how hard it was for our ancestors not so long ago, when international phone calls were luxuries and the only way to keep in touch by writing letters that took days, sometimes weeks, to arrive.

And that’s assuming they could write.

In the 1970s, 5.2% of Italy’s population was illiterate. Most of those who could not read or write were women in rural areas. One, we know now, was a mother of three, likely from the area around Catania, on the eastern side of Sicily. Her story has made history, thanks to a poignant 1973 letter written entirely in pictures, discovered by the Sicilian writer Gesualdo Bufalino.

(Copyright Eredi Gesualdo Bufalino. All right reserved, managed by The Italian Literary Agency, Milan)

The letter was addressed to her husband, explains Bufalino in his bookLa Luce e il Lutto (“Light and Grief,” link in Italian), a migrant worker abroad in Germany.

To preserve the intimacy of their correspondence, she did not ask for help in composing the letter in Italian. Instead, writes Bufalino, the woman and husband developed their own secret code. Bufalino, reportsItalian online publication Il Post (link in Italian), was able to retrieve one of their letters and translate the symbols into words:

Here is his translation—rendered in English by Quartz, and republished below in the original Italian:

My dear love, my heart is tormented by your far away thought, and I stretch my arms toward you, together with the three kids. All in good health, me and the two older, unwell, but not seriously, the little one. The previous letter I sent you didn’t receive a reply, and I am sad about it. Your mother, hit by a disease, is in the hospital, where I go visit her. Do not worry that I go there empty-handed; or alone, generating gossip: our middle son comes with me, while the oldest looks after the youngest.

Our little field, I ensured that it was ploughed and sown. To the two daily workers, I gave 150,000 lire [about €500, or $560 today] . The town elections were held. I voted for the Christian Democracy, as the parish suggested. For the Hammer and Sickle, the defeat has been huge: as if they died, in a coffin. . . . .