Feel-Good Hits of the Season

Robin Rice on Visual Art | Cornucopia: Recent Acquisitions in Japanese Art

by Robin Rice

Not in the mood for a cannibalism musical or any of the season's other strangely downbeat cinematic releases? The Art Museum has more shows than a multiplex, and every one is suitable for kids. There's even still time to catch the headliner, "Renoir Landscapes." Renoir's cotton-candy-on-canvas palette is alluring on damp gray days, and time-stamped tickets are usually available.

However, the trek to my choice from more than a dozen possibilities is half the fun. You'll cruise some of the PMA's most spectacular reconstructed architecture, including fabulous turquoise and blue Turkish tile work, a Spanish Romanesque cloister with a fountain, a dim Indian temple with rows of caryatidlike stone figures, and an expansive weathered Chinese entrance hall with cases of priceless carved crystal objects. Finally, stroll past the Japanese tea house set among low bamboo to reach the understated "Cornucopia: Recent Acquisitions in Japanese Art."

"Cornucopia" accurately describes the eclectic group of ceramics, lacquer work and paintings. Each is an embellishment to an already impressive collection. Products of ancient tradition united with contemporary aesthetics include Tanabe Takeo's big scrunched Let it Be basket and Okada Yugi's dry lacquerware vase with a segue of colors building leading to dense iridescent mother-of-pearl inlay toward the base.

A number of works from the Edo period (1603-1867) include blue 18th-century "Gamboling Lions" painted by Hasugawa Setsurei on a gold leaf screen. They reminded one visitor of Maurice Sendak. There's a satiny celadon persimmon-shaped ceramic vessel with a lacquered wood lid by Kawase Shiobu. A pair of charming scrolls by Teisai Hokuba depict a myriad of closely observed human behaviors. However, the undisputed favorite is Matsumoto Hoji's vivid economical evocation of a large stolid toad. Perhaps the most intriguing and historically significant piece, though, is an unpretentious anonymous fifth- or sixth-century pottery vase, a battered survivor from Japan's early engagement with Korean and Chinese ceramics.

(r_rice@citypaper.net)

Cornucopia: Recent Acquisitions in Japanese Art Through Fall

Renoir LandscapesThrough Jan. 6Philadelphia Museum of Art26th and Ben Franklin Parkway215-763-8100philamuseum.org