Chance to brush up on Japanese culture at Chester Beatty

Antiques & Fine Art: Des O'Sullivan checks out upcoming painting and printmaking exhibitions 

‘Kaminarimon Gate at Kannon Temple Asakusa’ by Tamagawa Schucho.

With the Olympics less than two weeks away, there is right now a rare chance to brush up on matters Japanese — specifically the floating world known as ukiyo-e that expressed the ambitions of the common townspeople of the Edo period — at the marvellous Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle.

Edo in Colour: Prints from Japan’s Metropolis explores how woodblock prints shaped fashion, fame and identity in Edo, the city now known as Tokyo.

During the Edo period (c1603-1868) Japan and its arts flourished in isolation from the rest of the world.

Party under Wisteria Trellis by Chobunsai Eishi.

By the late 1630s foreigners were officially prohibited as traditions of the past were revived, refined, parodied and transformed by expanding societies during the relatively peaceful 250 years when the Tokugawa shoguns ruled. In urban Edo a witty and irreverent expression surfaced in the visual and literary arts which gave rise to Kabuki theatre and the woodblock prints of ukiyo-e.

Chester Beatty offers pictures of actors and beauties with masterpieces by Hokusai and Hiroshige and many more from the library’s renowned collection.

The exhibition features more than 100 prints and printed books from Edo. Shown in two parts between now and December, the exhibition will close for a week on August 30 to allow for a changeover.

There are various opportunities to explore this fascinating world online and through the accompanying catalogue. Don’t miss it.

Francis Seymour Haden — A Sunset in Ireland.

Meantime, a window on printmaking over the past 500 years is open at the City Assembly House at South William Street in Dublin, headquarters of the Irish Georgian Society.

Super Moon 5 by Edward Twohig.

Art by Rembrandt, Durer, Turner, Tissot, Pisarro, Cezanne, Whistler and Samuel Palmer is featured in a touring exhibition entitled “Print REbels” which runs until August 27.

This is a show of works collected over the past two and a half decades by Corkman Edward Twohig, currently Head of Art at Marlborough College in Wiltshire with 140 historical and contemporary original prints. They were first brought together at the Bankside Gallery in London to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Francis Seymour Haden, first president of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers.

Haden created his finest work in Ireland and the exhibition includes some of his prints.

Edward Twohig is a graduate of the Crawford in Cork and Chelsea College of Arts.