Special Exhibition “Aves Japonicae 3 – Between Detail and Sketch”

2017.01.06-2017.04.09
STUDIOLO

There is a handbook for Japanese drawing called fun-pon. Especially within the Maruyama school, these handbooks for drawing were used by artists when they could not sketch real objects, serving so to speak as a reference specimen drawn on paper. In this exhibition, we introduce a volume of Kakyo Kawabe’s Sketches of Birds series, along with stuffed specimens.
Unlike other volumes of the same series, the drawings shown here are quick sketches of living birds. While capturing precisely the details of a static specimen, they express movement with exactitude, forming a perfect work on birds.
On the other hand, stuffed specimens being made from real birds, their realistic quality in every detail is guaranteed, as it were. However, even though the details are perfect, shaping and posing are indispensable to make the bird full of life. In other words, stuffed specimens also require both precise details and sketches of movement.

[Organization] The University Museum, the University of Tokyo