Hiroshige 2023. From the Collection of Feliks ‘Manggha’ Jasieński
Sunday, November 26, 2023, 12:00 PM - Sunday, May 5, 2024
The Manggha Museum is holding an exhibition focusing on one of the greatest ukiyo-e artists, Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858), who largely contributed to changing the visual language of Western art in the 19th and 20th centuries and the rise of the phenomenon known as Japonisme. The Feliks ‘Manggha’ Jasieński Collection comprises nearly two thousand woodblock prints of his design.
Even though Hiroshige came from a samurai family, he rather identified with the urban culture of Edo. The artist was famous primarily for his numerous landscape series, especially The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi), One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei), and The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaidō (Kisokaidō rokujūkyū tsugi no uchi). He was a true master at depicting landscape at various times of the year and the day, in changing weather conditions. He continued to experiment, developing original ploys in pictorial composition, new devices with respect to the treatment of space, and intriguing ways of representing reality.
The exhibition Hiroshige 2023: From the Collection of Feliks ‘Manggha’ Jasieński showcases three dominant topoi in the artist’s work – Nature, the Road, and Places – which interweave into a timeless statement. They are accompanied by significant motifs relevant to contemporary art and popular culture. There is also a biographical element, referring to Hiroshige’s samurai background, considered in the context of his prints depicting famous Japanese heroes, notably the 47 ronin in the series The Treasury of Loyal Retainers (Chūshingura).
The exhibition is complemented by a space illustrating the artist’s influence on landscape painting in the Young Poland movement.
The Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology
ul. Konopnickiej 26
The intriguing world of distant Japanese culture is a permanent element of Kraków’s cultural landscape.
The Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology was set up as an initiative of Andrzej Wajda and his wife Krystyna Zachwatowicz, both fascinated by Japanese culture. When presented with the Kyoto Prize (the Japanese equivalent of the Nobel Prize, granted for philosophy, art, science, and technology) of $400,000 in 1987, Andrzej Wajda decided to assign it to the construction of a new museum in Kraków. The building was designed by an eminent Japanese architect Arata Isozaki in cooperation with Kraków architects Krzysztof Ingarden, Jacek Ewý, and JET Atelier.
The modern building by the bank of the Vistula was set up to provide a home for the lavish collection of the art of the Far East in the possession of the National Museum in Krakow. The main part is the magnificent collection of Japanese art presented to the museum by an eminent collector, Feliks Jasieński, in 1920. The name of the museum comes from the pseudonym taken by the collector. . Beautiful objects: woodcuts, objects of artistic craft including ceramics, costumes, fabrics, and weapons provide the starting point for regular presentations of various subjects connected with Japanese art, culture, and customs. External partners have their temporary exhibitions hosted here, and the museum function of the Manggha is combined with educational pursuits that promote knowledge of the culture of Japan and of other Asian countries.
Tickets: normal PLN 30, concessions PLN 20, admission free on Tuesday
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