Artworks

Floating Lights

Artwork · Yokoyama Taikan · 1909 · kakemono · Museum of Modern Art, Ibaraki

Yokoyama Taikan (1868–1958) and Hishida Shunsō saw this form of divination at Varanasi in 1903: women in pale saris float plates of burning oil on the Ganges — if the flame does not go out, good fortune will follow. No outline, only flat areas of colour; the atmosphere light and clear, as if bleached by the Indian sun. 1 Mason 2005, pp. 366–367, fig. 434. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.