The Night Gallery

“Autumn Maples with Poem Slips Date:

c. 1675

Artist: Tosa Mitsuoki

Japanese, 1617-1691

ABOUT THIS ARTWORK

“Japanese aristocrats engaged in the elegant custom of recollecting classical poetry while viewing spring and autumn foliage. In these delicate screens, premier court painter Tosa Mitsuoki meditated on the inevitable passage of beauty by depicting the melancholy hours after the departure of reveling courtiers. A cherry tree bursts into bloom on the right screen (seen here at top), while its mate displays the brilliant red and gold foliage of maples in autumn. Slips of poetry, called tanzaku, waft from the blossoming limbs, the remaining evidence of a human presence. Courtiers (whose names are recorded in a seventeenth-century document) assisted Mitsuoki by inscribing the narrow strips with quotations of appropriate seasonal poetry from twelfth- and thirteenth-century anthologies. The screens were either commissioned by or given to Tofukumon’in (1607–1678), a daughter of the Tokugawa shogun who married the emperor Gomizunoo (1596–1680). In an era otherwise marked by increasing control of the feudal shogunate over imperial prerogatives, this royal couple encouraged a renaissance of courtly taste that nostalgically evoked the past glories of early-medieval aristocratic life.

La Nuit, gold necklace set with opal, plique‑à‑jour enamel and diamonds, attributed to Alphonse Mucha, 1905

Monument to the Uprising of the Residents of Kordun and Banidja Petrovac, Petrova Gora, Croatia

Traverse Board, 18th -19th century

Simple traverse boards were used in northern Europe by the 16th century to keep a record of a ship’s movements. They were circular and had a series of holes along lines marking the 32 points of the compass. Pegs were attached to the board by string and placed in the correct hole for the course being steered, normally one hole for each half hour of the watch, as measured by a sand-glass.

I'm out, throwing this over the fence

Hermann Gradl (designer)

Villeroy & Boch Keramische Werke (manufacturer) & Orivit AG (manufacturer)

Art Nouveau wall fountain

William Hawkins (American, born 1962)

Untitled, 2023