Case Study: Under the Wave off Kanagawa | Video Essay @michellew5326

Michelle W Perhaps one of Japan’s most notable artwork is none other than Hokusai’s Under the Wave off Kanagawa (1830-1832). As a part of a woodcut series named 36 views of Mount Fuji, this piece particularly stood out due to its multi-faceted connotations that is weaved in by it’s personal and historical context. However, such pedestal and recognition is given by many Euro-Americans instead of the country of its origin when we consider that the artwork you’re looking at here is merely ukiyo-e, a woodcut genre mass produced for popular consumption. Translated as ‘pictures of the floating world’, artists used ukiyo-e to record the highpoints of Japanese culture with usual themes such as Kabuki actors, courtesans, geishas and nature. As quote from Okakura Kakuzo in the 1900, ‘the history of Japanese art cannot be written through ukiyo-e”. Of course, anyone would questioned the print’s authenticity and place as a country’s representative artwork due to its association with popular culture instead of elitist art. So, why should Under the Wave off Kanagawa and the rest of the series be given equal significance like any other elitist art?

Hey guys, Michelle here! :) thanks for watching! I hope you enjoyed my first video! I try to post educational stuff every fortnight. Do leave some comment about what you might want to watch? And subscribe maybe? ;) Cheers! \\

Reference for this video!
Christine M. E. Guth, (2011), Hokusai's Great Waves in Nineteenth-Century Japanese Visual Culture, The Art Bulletin, 93(4), pp. 468-485

Music credits:
That Kid in Fourth Grade Who Really Liked the Denver Broncos by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
Source: http://chriszabriskie.com/uvp
Artist: http://chriszabriskie.com

Prelude No. 20 by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
Source: http://chriszabriskie.com/preludes
Artist: http://chriszabriskie.com

updated 8 years ago

Case Study: Under the Wave off Kanagawa | Video Essay

Michelle W 2016-08-04 | Perhaps one of Japan’s most notable artwork is none other than Hokusai’s Under the Wave off Kanagawa (1830-1832). As a part of a woodcut series named 36 views of Mount Fuji, this piece particularly stood out due to its multi-faceted connotations that is weaved in by it’s personal and historical context. However, such pedestal and recognition is given by many Euro-Americans instead of the country of its origin when we consider that the artwork you’re looking at here is merely ukiyo-e, a woodcut genre mass produced for popular consumption. Translated as ‘pictures of the floating world’, artists used ukiyo-e to record the highpoints of Japanese culture with usual themes such as Kabuki actors, courtesans, geishas and nature. As quote from Okakura Kakuzo in the 1900, ‘the history of Japanese art cannot be written through ukiyo-e”. Of course, anyone would questioned the print’s authenticity and place as a country’s representative artwork due to its association with popular culture instead of elitist art. So, why should Under the Wave off Kanagawa and the rest of the series be given equal significance like any other elitist art?

Hey guys, Michelle here! :) thanks for watching! I hope you enjoyed my first video! I try to post educational stuff every fortnight. Do leave some comment about what you might want to watch? And subscribe maybe? ;) Cheers! \\

Reference for this video!
Christine M. E. Guth, (2011), Hokusai's Great Waves in Nineteenth-Century Japanese Visual Culture, The Art Bulletin, 93(4), pp. 468-485

Music credits:
That Kid in Fourth Grade Who Really Liked the Denver Broncos by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
Source: http://chriszabriskie.com/uvp
Artist: http://chriszabriskie.com

Prelude No. 20 by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
Source: http://chriszabriskie.com/preludes
Artist: http://chriszabriskie.com

Pans Labyrinth and Magic Realism | Video Essay

Michelle W 2016-10-16 | Magic realism, a term that seems to be postulated differently by various authors; Asturias claimed the literary genre as a specific expression of the Latin American society; Homi Bhabha categorises magic realism as the literary language of the postcolonial world; Fredric Jameson claims it to be a kind of narrative material derived from peasant society or tribal myth while Salman Rushdie considers the term to be an expression of a Third-world consciousness. Although the term has thus become ‘anything you want it to mean’, magic realism still follows a general conception by Carpentier, where real maravilloso is not a realism to be transfigured by the ‘supplement’ of a magical perspective but a reality which is already in and of itself magical or fantastic. Which is why, in magic realism, the supernatural as well as highly improbable events are presented without any comment from the narrator and these events are accepted in a matter-of-fact manner. As can be seen through the film El Laberinto del Fauno by Guillermo del Toro, Ofelia’s encounter of magic is accepted factually.

However, in this film, what functions does fantasy serve in reality? What relation does the fantasy have with reality?

//Michelle here :) Hey guys, I'm sorry for the late upload! Things have been really busy at college but I'll try my best to not go on a hiatus! Anyways thanks for watching and I'll see you guys again real soon :) Comment on what you'd like to watch. Give this video a thumbs up and subscribe if you haven't already! Cheers!\\

How Zootopia Fools Us | Video Essay

Michelle W 2016-08-24 | Zootopia, “a place built by the animals, for the animals” (Byron Howard & Rich Moore), is a metropolis where “anyone can be anything” (Judy Hopps). One Shakira song later, we are brought into the grandeur of Zootopia, only to be fooled by it’s tagline. But how?

//Hey guys, Michelle here! Thanks for watching! I hope you enjoyed my second video! I try to post educational stuff every fortnight. Comment, thumbs up or subscribe maybe? ;) Maybe all three? ;) Cheers!\\