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Hawaiian Dress: The Holoku in Cultural Context (38 min)

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Art of Japan: The Many Worlds of Ukiyo-e Prints

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Art of Japan: The Many Worlds of Ukiyo-e Prints

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0:00 / 1:12:22•Watch full video

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Art of Japan: The Many Worlds of Ukiyo-e Prints

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Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper

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Rain in Japanese Woodblock Prints: The lush islands of Japan receive abundant rainfall throughout the year, but especially in the rainy season of early summer (tsuyu) and during the typhoon storms of autumn.

From the mid-19th century, landscape print artists attempted to capture these sentiments in their compositions, and developed a variety of specialized techniques for depicting different types of rain.

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Seated Figure, 12th–9th century B.C. Mexico, Mesoamerica, Olmec, Ceramic, pigment, H. 13 3/8 x W. 12 1/2 x

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THE AMERICAS:                                                     Olmec Seated Figure

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THE AMERICAS:                                                     Olmec Seated Figure

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This seated figure likely represents an infant gazing upward and raising its right hand to its mouth. The artist of this baby worked in a fine, white clay to produce a hollow figure subsequently decorated with a white slip and red pigment. Without marked gender and seated with splayed legs and its hands on its thighs, the figure has the posture, body proportions, and fleshiness of a human baby, though symbolic designs embellishing its body and a distinctive headdress distinguish it from a mere mortal.

Supernatural infants play a significant role in Olmec art. These could be portraits of elite babies, infantilized portraits of actual individuals, idealized portraits of deities or mythological characters, or some other type of ritual agent. They could be memorials to infants that left this world too early, or representative emblems of whole lineages. The Olmec peoples may have been preoccupied with child-rearing and the mythological connections between the life cycles of infants and agriculture. In some cases, the ceramic effigies may have served as substitutes for actual infants in a sacrificial or dedicatory ritual, as there is compelling evidence of Olmec infant sacrifice or ceremonial burials. Mexican researchers working at the extraordinary waterlogged site of El Manatí (“the manatee”) found dismembered bones of newborns, perhaps neonates, and a primary infant burial in the fetal position.

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3.7 Standard of Ur, Early Dynastic III, c. 2600–2400 BCE; War (top) and Peace (bottom). Wood inlaid with shell, lapis lazuli, and red limestone, 7⅞ × 18½”. 

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Discovered in Royal Cemetery of Ur this wooden box is inlaid with shell, lapis lazuli, and red limestone.

War side

Top register: ruler in center receiving prisoners

Middle register: soldiers marching and shaming enemies

Bottom register: battle

Peace side

Depicts musical banquet in which food and gifts are carried in procession

Ruler is seated in the top register, far left

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Cloak made of weaved honeyeaters and honeycreepers birds feathers bound together and knotted into a dense netting of olona vine fibre.

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PACIFIC ISLANDS: Ahu’ula (feather cloak)

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PACIFIC ISLANDS: Ahu’ula (feather cloak)

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Cloaks were used as ceremonial and warfare attire for nobility believed to offer the protection of the gods. The color and design identify high rank of owner. Red feathers from the ’i’iwi bird, yellow feathers from the rarer ’o’o bird. A prized possession passed from generation to generation. This one was a political gift from King Kamehameha III to American naval officer Lawrence Kearny.

Information from Pacific Art in Detail: This kind of cloak made by Hawaiian high-ranking specialists for their chief in the sacred practices of collecting and weaving feathers were handed through generations or given as gifts to secure political allegiances.
Hawaiian chiefs (ali'i) traced their lines of descent from the gods of creation. Many of these gods were linked to birds. The shape and wing-like designs of the cloaks made clear the chiefs close connections to feathered gods, while red and yellow feathers were seen to attract the god's positive attention.Worn in battles, the cloaks proclaimed the chief's presence and gave spiritual as well as physical protection from attack.