Denise M Taylor

Writing Consultant I Editor I Proofreader

In 1830, at the age of 60, the self-professed drawing maniac, Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), thought his best work was yet to come, and maybe it was, but the National Gallery of Victoria’s ‘Hokusai’ exhibition (closes 14 October) proves that his woodblock prints and paintings prior to the 1830s were indicative of a prodigious artistic talent. Displayed in the […]

Categories: Musings on Art

For those who follow the teachings of Zen, one must not merely look, but see—and hear. I’m not the meditating type, but the extreme spareness of Ryōan-ji, the dry-landscape Japanese garden in Kyoto, with its solid wall and graceful overhanging branches of cherry blossom—an extraordinary place of art—encouraged me to silently contemplate the meaning of its stillness. This is not […]

Categories: Musings on Art

Claude Monet (1846-1926) painted water in its many forms and moods—a rough and animated sea, a misty and mysterious river, a still and reflective pond, and crisp, white snow. Monet began his water garden at his home in Giverny in 1893, and over time the plants in and around the pond grew and merged, softened and framed. In Monet’s painting, […]

Categories: Musings on Art

It all started when Japan opened its doors to the West in the 1850s and Japanese works of art infiltrated Europe, the centre of interest being in Paris. By 1867 French Impressionist artists such as Claude Monet turned their attention to the popular ukiyo-e (‘pictures of the floating world’) woodblock prints and illustrated books that depicted life in the urban […]

It took three hours from Kyoto by train and bus (make that 6 hours return), but it was worth it … My friend with whom I was travelling had kindly acquiesced and agreed to my bizarre pilgrimage to see two rocks in the Genkai sea (the southwestern tip of the Sea of Japan).  For some reason, when Gary Hickey, our […]