Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The activity behind this blog is my time spent with things that I want to get to know better. It's an odd compulsion: I want to take them in. I want to eat them. I want to make them part of me. Taking a photograph won't do it. I need some proof of my engagement with that thing or that place. A drawing or painting of some sort is the only thing that will do.

These drawings were done during a recent visit to the Museum of FIne Arts in Boston. I'm returning their briefly this morning to rendezvous with a friend and visit an exhibit about Japanese Tea in the Asian section of the museum. She's a bit of an expert! There are some absolutely wonderfully beautiful things there.

This large statue is not in the Japanese tea exhibit but it is magnificent and you can't miss it if you pass anywhere near it. The curators have placed in front of a tall divided window. In the mid afternoon, the sun illuminates the grape leaves seen in silhouette as they climb in lines behind the hulking benediction of the "Seated Bodhisattva".

A very small jar in the form of a grebe (a type of waterfowl). The jar would contain tea. Probably just enough for two cups. I really don't know. Perhaps I will find out more today. Here's another view of this marvelous object:

 

Finally, there's one tea bowl made and decorated by the great Kenzan Ogata. To find out more about Kenzan, I suggest you read Bernard Leach's "A Potter's Book"

Bonne journée!