Shibata Zeshin'sby Joseph Stanton |
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Zeshin has made a monkey out of someone here. Is it the bourgeois patron of the arts who sees himself redeemed, saved from his lack of aristocracy by taste, or something like it, finding his simian true self captured in delicate, refined shapes of netsuke? Or does the artist ape himself, mocking his own ambitions to be lacquerer supreme, master of artifacts he makes, collects, and recollects, as all around him old Edo is roaring toward becoming Tokyo? Or does he have us in mind, as we stare at these wittily bizarre reflections, the deftly arcane musings of Shibata Zeshin, whose secrets we pretend to fathom, aping the pose of refined collection? | ||||||||
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