Emerson Gallery Presents Exhibition of Japanese Art

The exhibition Proper, Improper andHeroic: Women in Nineteenth Century Japanese Art opens Thursday, October30th, at the Emerson Gallery at Hamilton College. The exhibition, which willrun from October 30 to December 16, will explore the evolution of the depictionof women in Japanese art over the course of the nineteenth century. Lookingprincipally at woodblock prints, Proper, Improper will include worksranging from the well-know Ukiyo-e or floating world prints of the Edo period(1615 - 1868) to the images of ordinary women in everyday settings that wereproduced in the Meiji period (1868 - 1912) that followed. Included in theexhibition will be works from the collections of the Emerson Gallery, theMunson-Williams-Proctor Institute, and other lenders. The exhibition will beaccompanied by a number of special programs. Both exhibition and programs arefree and open to the public.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, under the regulated and stratifiedTokugawa military regime, images of improper courtesans and their sexualencounters with their patrons speak of the escapist life of the Yoshiwara, thepleasure quarter of Edo (Tokyo). Later, after Japan was opened to foreigninfluence in 1865, a craze developed for all things western. Images of properJapanese women dressed in the latest European fashions reflect the fact that,for the first time, women in "polite" society were able to pursue a public lifein the western manner. At the end of the century, the conservative imperialgovernment of the Meiji restoration sought to reverse the effects of westerninfluence and to promote a role for women that was more compatible withtraditional Japanese ideas of a well-ordered society. Images of respectablewomen, both legendary and contemporary, pictured at home engaged in traditionalactivities, indicate the strength of this societal shift.

In conjuction with the exhibition, the Emerson Gallery will present a number ofpublic programs, including a Gallery Talk by guest curator Diane Graham at 4:00p.m. on Thursday, October 30 followed by an Opening Reception at the EmersonGallery from 4:30 - 6:00 p.m. On Wednesday, November 12 a concert of koto andshakuhachi music performed by New York Sankyoku-Kai (The Traditional JapaneseMusic Ensemble of New York) will be presented at 7:30 p.m. at the EmersonGallery. On Thursday, November 20, at 4:00 p.m. guest curator Diane Grahamwill present a slide-illustrated lecture in the Red Pit in the Kirner-JohnsonBuilding entitled "Courtesan, Fox or Housewife: Model Behavior for Women inNineteenth Century Japan." And on Wednesday, December 3 at 7:30 p.m. inKirner-Johnson Auditorium, Masahiro Shinoda's film Double Suicide (1969)will be presented. (See attached list of programs)

The Emerson Gallery is located on the campus of Hamilton College, in ChristianJohnson Hall, directly behind the college chapel. The Gallery is wheelchairaccessible. Gallery hours are weekdays, 12 - 5, weekends, 1 - 5, duringscheduled exhibitions. For further information, contact the Emerson Gallery at315 859-4396.