Travel Seminars

Over four days in May 2024 graduate students of East Asian art accompanied Professor McKelway, Midori Oka, and Professor Arakawa Masaaki from Gakushūin University to several historical sites of ceramic production in Kyushu. The trip was an extension of the seminar Prof. Arakawa taught in the Department of Art History & Archaeology in fall 2023. Beginning at Karatsu, they explored Momoyama period (early 17th c.) kiln sites and visited the Karatsu-ware potters Nakazato Takashi and his son Nakazato Taki, and continued to Arita to see the Izumiyama quarry, where kaolin clay used for porcelain was first discovered in Japan. While in Arita they also visited Imaizumi Imaemon XIV, a Living National Treasure, whose family has been creating Nabeshima ware porcelain since the early 17th century.

Professor McKelway took a group of students from Columbia University to Japan for a field seminar on relationships between painting and architecture co-organized with Professor Shimizu Shigeatsu of Kyoto Kōgei Sen’i Daigaku (Kyoto Institute of Technology) and his colleagues Professor Ido Misato and Professor Akamatsu Kazue. This trip, which was funded by the Murase Travel Fund for Japanese Art, was the first of its kind organized for students of East Asian Art history from Columbia. For ten intensive days the group, which also included art history and architecture students from Kyoto Institute of Technology, studied temples and shrines in the Kansai region, focusing on Kyoto and the ancient city of Nara.

Highlights of the seminar included: viewing the 12th century Illustrated Legends of Mount Shigi (Shigisan engi) on view in its entirety in a special exhibition at the Nara National Museum followed by a private lecture by the curator, Taniguchi Kōsei; viewing the special exhibition on the arts of Zen Buddhism at the Kyoto National Museum; an overnight trip to study the room paintings by Maruyama Ōkyo and his studio at Daijōji; and a day at Hōryūji, where the group was permitted to view the temple’s 7th century gate from scaffolding recently erected for conservation work.

The students, Xiaohan Du, Cathy Zhu, Valerie Zinner, Eric Wong, and Trevor Menders (CC ‘18) gave presentations on their observations and findings at a symposium organized by Professor Shimizu and Professor Ido on May 24, the proceedings of which will be published by Kyoto Institute of Technology.