¡°Do You Know Osaka Painting Circles?¡± (¡°Gozonji Desu-ka? Osaka Gadan¡°) at the Shokado Garden Art Museum questions whether visitors know of Osaka¡¯s early modern painters. This is not disingenuous. Early modern Japanese art history has long focused on the Edo (Tokyo)/Kyoto polarity, sidelining other artistic centers. The show seeks to retrieve the cultural contribution made by Japan¡¯s ¡°third¡± city, usually known for commerce and industry.
Approximately 40 works by 20 painters and a few others by printmakers are drawn from a private collection. The primary historical emphasis is on Osaka-born artists who worked in the city in the mid-to-late Edo Period (1603-1868). There are a number of engaging tensions apparent, not least of which is: What constitutes an ¡°Osaka artist,¡± or an Osakan style?
Osakan aesthetics have conventionally emphasized regional traits like humor, boisterousness, ebullient Naniwa (present-day Osaka) emotion, or aesthetics of omoroi (fun, or associated qualities of interestingness). What is observed in the exhibition works, however, is Osaka as a cultural intersection for a number of farther flung traditions.
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