please disable the ad blocking feature and reload the page This website uses cookies to collect information about your visit for purposes such as showing you personalized ads and content By clicking “Accept all,” you will allow the use of these cookies Users accessing this site from EEA countries and UK are unable to view this site without your consent By Yuki Miyashita / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer The cultural and political center of Japan was in the Kinki region in western Japan during the Kofun period (ca 300-ca 710) Eastern Japan was still largely a backcountry but what is now Shimotsuke in Tochigi Prefecture had a strong connection with the central regime More than 200 kofun ancient tombs have been discovered in Shimotsuke which is also home to the remnants of Shimotsuke Kokubunji temple a historic site designated by the government Shimotsuke Fudoki-no-Oka Museum is exhibiting artifacts unearthed from the area and offering opportunities for visitors to learn about the history of ancient Shimotsuke The exhibits mostly come from the Kofun period and the Nara period (710-784) They start with text introducing the massive ancient burial mounds from the Kofun period whose distinctive keyhole-shaped layout was formalized by the central government of the time “Powerful local families would boast that they have connections with the regime by building the same type of tombs,” said Koichi Yamaguchi of the Shimotsuke municipal government’s cultural property department “It’s like convenience stores becoming franchised and showing a certain quality level.” A haniwa earthenware depiction of a woman using a cloth-weaving device It was discovered in the middle of a procession of haniwa figures representing horses and humans The person buried in the tomb is believed to be an important figure related to weaving Another significant person of the period was Shimotsuke no Ason Komaro a minister who rose to a high status in the center of the state despite hailing from a regional area Komaro led the editing work for Taiho Ritsuryo and was involved in the construction of the tomb for the emperor of the time but he is said to have been an educated member of the elite who acquired knowledge from China’s Tang dynasty without ever traveling to or studying in China Another eye-catching exhibit is a 1-to-150 scale model of Shimotsuke Kokubunji temple The country was hit by a smallpox outbreak and natural disasters during the Nara period and the reigning Emperor Shomu ordered the construction of Kokubunji provincial temples all over the country to help dispel anxiety among the people Even such a small-scale model expresses the magnificence of the structure and helps one imagine how hard it must have been for people of the time to build it when they were already exhausted from disasters and the epidemic The museum reopened in May after undergoing renovations which included new introduction labels for the exhibits Our weekly ePaper presents the most noteworthy recent topics in an exciting © 2025 The Japan News - by The Yomiuri Shimbun WORCESTER— A protean creator and master of many styles a punchy personality — the Japanese artist Hokusai (1760-1849) was in many ways the Picasso of his day He was as adept at reviving classical forms of beauty as he was at inventing new expressions of the erotic and the grotesque He delighted in the possibilities of graphic invention And his emotional range was never predictable: He could be — just like the Spaniard — utterly in earnest one moment and incorrigibly mischievous the next Just as Picasso affected art-making in provinces way beyond his native Spain and adopted France Hokusai revolutionized picture-making far from the shores of Japan His influence (like Picasso’s) was great in this country But it was particularly pronounced in France where Hokusai played a central role in the onset of the style known as “Le Japonisme.” at least one genre to which Picasso contributed very little Hokusai didn’t explore landscape with real vigor until he was in his 70s Despite past periods of prestige in Japanese art landscape had been disregarded by ukiyo-e artists of the 17th It never really registered as anything more than background filler Hokusai turned the given order of things upside down He produced his greatest work in this genre including the series “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji.” One of those “views” is one of the most famous images in world art: “Beneath the Wave off Kanagawa,” often referred to as “The Great Wave.” But despite the renown of “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji,” and the subsequent three-volume “One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji,” some say the real high point of Hokusai’s achievement in landscape was a series of eight woodblock prints called “A Tour of Waterfalls in the Provinces” (also known as “A Tour of Japanese Waterfalls”) which owns a rare set of first edition impressions of these prints has provided a welcome chance to study all eight of them in a temporary show “Pilgrimage to Hokusai’s Waterfalls,” displayed in its newly redesigned Japanese gallery The first thing that leaps out at you is the preponderance of blue in these prints amid a great deal of lush summertime green In his “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji,” Hokusai who was deeply curious and informed about European art made use of a blue — Prussian blue — that had only recently made it to Japan from Berlin Turning his attention to the subject of waterfalls feels almost like a deliberate strategy to ramp up the possibilities of Prussian blue The second thing you notice is the variety of graphic stylizations Hokusai uses to render the waterfalls themselves Some look like the roots of trees spreading out from above Others alternate white vertical stripes with different shades and thicknesses of blue stripes One — the “Kirifuri Waterfall at Mount Kurokami in Shimotsuke Province” — evokes nothing so much as the eerie extension of a slime-covered monster’s hand Hokusai may not have seen all of them with his own eyes But in an era that witnessed the possibilities of internal travel in Japan opening up And he made many specific observations that appear in the prints Not just cliff formations and surrounding vegetation but temples in grottoes halfway up the falls hints of local commerce (men carrying baskets of shellfish on a yoke and seemingly smitten interest in the small but busy world of human affairs — bathing sometimes treacherous forces of the natural world And what could express these forces more directly “Roben Waterfall at Oyama in Soshu Province,” shows a group of men wearing loincloths holding prayer boards and washing themselves at the foot of a large fall It’s a reminder that water has a purifying function in Shinto rites (One such rite consists of praying upright under a waterfall.) But Hokusai wasn’t just illustrating the sacred nature of waterfalls He was finding ways — incredibly inventive ways — to distill into graphic form these immense and mercurial spiritual forces Hence the abruptly different mood of each print and all the surprising pictorial inventions (none more remarkable than the flat patterned circular design at the mouth of the waterfall in “Amida Waterfall Remotely Beyond the Kisokaido”) You can well imagine the effect these works and unlabored stylizations must have had on artists like Manet and Degas But how did Hokusai catch on in France in the first place His proselytizing fell on very receptive ground Much about Hokusai — not just his inventiveness which bordered (willfully) on madness — chimed with Romantic notions about the role of artists and the nature of genius The interest in Hokusai grew to such a degree that three different biographies had been penned in France two of them by France’s leading art critics There’s a temptation to neutralize the impact of an individual artist like Hokusai by thinking of the French interest in Japan as the symptom of something broader — a superficial fad the pictorial innovations we attribute to Manet even Picasso are all very hard to imagine without the example of Hokusai Degas expressed best the admiration of his peers when he described Hokusai as “not just one artist among others in the Floating World” but rather “an island Sebastian Smee can be reached at ssmee@globe.com. Home Delivery Gift Subscriptions Log In Manage My Account Customer Service Delivery Issues Feedback News Tips Help & FAQs Staff List Advertise Newsletters View the ePaper Order Back Issues News in Education Search the Archives Privacy Policy Terms of Service Terms of Purchase Work at Boston Globe Media Internship Program Co-op Program Do Not Sell My Personal Information Your browser does not support JavaScript, or it is disabled．Please check the site policy for more information National Report A strong earthquake originating in the southern part of Ibaraki Prefecture rocked the Tokyo metropolitan area at 9:08 a.m sparking concerns of landslides and delaying several train lines and a tsunami warning was not issued following the earthquake The quake registered a lower-5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in Shimotsuke The Japan Meteorological Agency is urging residents in these areas to be cautious of landslides and cliff collapses for about a week The quake also rattled Tokyo’s 23 central wards with an intensity of 3 said services were temporarily suspended on the Tohoku Shinkansen Joetsu Shinkansen and Hokuriku Shinkansen lines no abnormalities were reported at its Tokai Second Nuclear Power Plant in Tokai The JMA said the focus of the earthquake was about 50 kilometers deep It was a reverse-fault type earthquake that struck near the boundary between the Philippine Sea Plate and the Continental Plate New bullet train service to Fukui opens up region often overlooked Earthquakes off Chiba’s east coast continue to rattle the region Gunma promotes safety record to lure capital investment Magnitude-5.0 quake jolts many parts of the Kanto region Seismologists say it is ‘unclear’ if recent quakes were related Information on the latest cherry blossom conditions Please right click to use your browser’s translation function.) A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II In-house News and Messages No reproduction or republication without written permission The official website for Tochigi TV's anime programming announced a short anime based on its original idol group "Marronni ☆ Yell." The anime is titled Sakura no Chikai ~Marronni ☆ Yell Higashi no Asuka Shimotsuke-shi o Yell!~ The website began streaming a promotional video that begins by recapping the group's history including voice actors that have participated in the project The story will be set in the city of Shimotsuke The fictional idol group celebrates Tochigi Prefecture and its local specialties, including strawberries, gourds, and gyoza buns. The group launched in 2013 with Sayaka Itsuki providing the character designs Itsuki draws a web manga titled Marronni ☆ Yell, and the manga received a compiled volume release (pictured right) on Wednesday, the same day as the third volume of Itsuki's other manga Susume! Tochigi-bu (Advance! Tochigi Club). The latter manga, also about Tochigi Prefecture, runs on Kadokawa's Comic Clear website Marronni ☆ Yell has also performed original songs and starred in a voiced comic Source: Comic Natalie Please view the main text area of the page by skipping the main menu. The page may not be displayed properly if the JavaScript is deactivated on your browser. Copyright THE MAINICHI NEWSPAPERS. All rights reserved. Former motorcycle world champion Wayne Gardner remains in a police cell in the town of Shimotsuke. (ABC Illawarra: Justin Huntsdale) Link copiedShareShare articleFormer motorcycle world champion Wayne Gardner remains in a police cell in the town of Shimotsuke, about 100 kilometres north of Tokyo, where he was taken after an alleged scuffle at the Motegi racetrack on Sunday (local time). It is alleged the 57-year-old was in the passenger seat of a car being driven by his 18-year-old son, Remy, who was arriving at the racetrack to take part in the Moto2 Grand Prix event. A car was doing a U-turn at the entrance of the racetrack when Remy Gardner's car entered the driveway. Police said the two cars came into contact, with Remy Gardner's left mirror scraping the other car. The occupants of both vehicles got into a discussion about what happened and Wayne Gardner started to push the other men and grab them by their collars, police said. Police have interviewed a witness to the fight as well as the three men from the other car. The three men were allowed to return to their homes in Tokyo. Wayne Gardner is being kept in a cell by himself. Police would not comment on whether or not Remy Gardner is also accused of any wrongdoing or if he is also being held in custody. CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)