two exhibitions

An exhibition of a grand collection of Meissen porcelain is taking place from April 7th to July 22nd, at The Museum of oriental ceramics, Osaka(東洋陶磁美術館）.


 
 
 
This cozy museum is located in Nakanoshima which is a long island-like sandbar between  two rivers, Dojima river and Tosabori river.


Near the museum there is a park and there are many kinds of roses blooming .

The roses have past their prime with tiny soft thorns...

and bud stage, too...

finally they started to open up beautifully.



Kakiemon style via Wikipedia

Getting back to the exhibition, the porcelain of Meissen developed by the two great artists, Ehrenfriend Walther von Tochirnhaus and Johann Fiedrich Böttger around 1710, under strong influence mainly of Chinoiserie, a Japanese style of painting represented by Kakiemon, Art Nouveau and other European arts.


 
The title of exhibition is "300 Years of Meissen", and the wide variety of the installations include figures of some animals and birds, figurines of vendors and clowns, various size of vases, and many table wares.


 
 
The original Meissen products were so expensive that only noble people could buy, but eventually some became an affordable luxury for the common people.


 
 
 
 
 
Rose pattern called Meissen Rose is the typical one, and I found it very attractive.
 
 

image via website

The other exhibition which I saw recently was quite small one. It took place in a room rather than a gallery in Osaka.

I introduced my brother's etchings in older post( here), this time he exhibited some works of etching which he created afterwards.

His works in this exhibition were made in colour , although the ones which I saw in his previous one were  all in monocrhrome.

My brother's wife was in the room instead of him because his health condition was getting progressively worse.

His wife told me about his poor health condition, while I looked at his colourful works which showed no sign of any darkness or sadness..

His works have numbers and she explained that he decided to start  numbering  from 001, rather than from 01.
The above one's number is 043.
Thinking of him I  remembered  the following tanka poem.

としどしにわが悲しみは深くしていよよ華やぐ命なりけり　岡本かの子

Year by year

I have greater awareness

of my sorrow

letting burn with a flame

in the depth of my life

by Kanoko Okamoto (1889~ 1939)

taken in a rose garden next to Ryousen-ji temple in Nara