Monthly Archives: September 2020

By way of Introduction:

Edo Avant Garde reveals the pivotal role Japanese artists of the Edo era (1603 ~ 1868) played in setting the stage for the “modern” art movement in the West. During the Edo era, bold Japanese artists innovated abstraction, minimalism, geometric composition and the illusion of 3-D. Their originality is most striking in images of nature depicted on large-scale folding screens. Scholars, priests, curators and collectors trace the artists’ ingenuity to their profound engagement with the natural world and their reverence for the spirits inhabiting it, inspired by Buddhism and Shinto animism.

To capture the dynamism, scale and meticulous details of the art, we filmed two hundred folding screens and hanging scrolls in museums and private collections across the U.S. and Japan, along with remote temples and shrines and in the bamboo groves, misted valleys and churning waves that inspired the artists centuries ago. We received special permission to film the works without protective glass, many in sunlight, one in candlelight, the way Japanese people experienced them centuries ago. The film is a meditative cinematic assemblage of masterpieces only made possible by my unprecedented access.

I hope you enjoy my film

and can share the link with your friends.

Thank you,

Linda Hoaglund

Director/Producer

Edo Avant Garde