MuVIM
The Mirror of Beauty: Japanese Art from the sixteenth to the twentieth Century
Temporary Exhibition (Extended till October 12, 2025)
10 y Guillen de Castro 8 | 46001, Valencia
The short-term exhibition within the downstairs exhibit corridor (Sala Alfons Roig) is an surprising pleasure. Sometimes the exhibit rooms on the MuVIM really feel a bit small however one isn’t upset by the work of the curators to pack a small area with expansive reveals that includes far reaching artwork and concepts.
The exhibit is stuffed with an eclectic combine starting from basic porcelain to kimonos. This consists of “engravings, sculptures, masks, illustrated books, ceramics, materials, work, cash, calligraphic works, stamps, screens, dolls and varied objects of on a regular basis use” (from the MuVim Web web page).
Even although the room is small the sheer quantity of fascinating artifacts is charming, every part specializing in one of many matters. The kimonos and stamps alone supply a stunning journey into essentially the most intricate of expressive artwork.
The nice function of the MuVIM is that this exhibit is free. You can drop in for a bit, see an exhibition (and even a part of one) and are available again for extra later. The area is so pretty — a cool, calm inventive oasis within the heart of Valencia.
Below is a translation of the data from the Web website:
“This exhibition invitations us to a journey into the center of magnificence, a fundamental attribute of Japanese artwork and, possibly, essentially the most simply recognizable trait of those that outline it. Through a big and heterogeneous group of items that embrace engravings, sculptures, masks, illustrated books, ceramics, materials, work, cash, calligraphic works, stamps, screens, dolls and varied objects of on a regular basis use, the exhibition proposes a tour of the assorted manifestations of this aesthetics that, within the case of Japan, is indissolubly linked to nature, understanding it as an entire of which additionally the human being is an element. Hence the large and strong trunk — “pure magnificence” from which the totally different branches of this allegorical tree emerge that sinks its roots within the dialectic between realism and stylization, the 2 opposing poles on which gravitate harmoniously the representations of nature introduced right here.
The branches to which we alluded are three: “Atmospheric phenomena”, “panorama” and “components” —minerals, vegetation, animals and people— that combine it, all of them embodied in all kinds of fabric helps. Of the final of those branches, “the weather”, and, particularly, of the human component, handled on many events as a mere decoration, a brand new department is born that we’ve referred to as “synthetic magnificence” —within the sense of “made or produced by the hand of man”— and that, nourish “the human panorama”; “summary magnificence”, exemplified by theater and calligraphy; and “gallant magnificence”, which accommodates very totally different manifestations, however whose frequent denominator is the ritual character mediated by the gesture, concise, delicate and delightful in itself. Among these occasions, the exhibition highlights the celebration of non secular and civil occasions, the apply of arts similar to flower association and tea ceremony or household and social hobbies such because the preparation of Hina Matsuri, card video games and the contemplation of nature, which speaks of a “seasonal and ephemeral magnificence” and brings us again to the place to begin, to the nice trunk from which all branches have emerged: “Natural magnificence”.
Precisely within the branches of this metaphorical tree into which the exhibition area has turn out to be, the final 4 varieties of magnificence that the exhibition provides us will flourish: “The great thing about simplicity, of the ajado and of the imperfect”; “The invisible magnificence”; “the random magnificence”, materialized within the “discovered objects”; and “the great thing about the image”, which transcends illustration.”
