Woodblocks & coffee

Over the past week we tried to keep our days full and fun to celebrate the last few "golden days" before I had to get back to work. One sunny morning we headed out to the Blanton Museum of Art.

Walkway to museum
Cool ceiling that is designed to only let in northerly light
Weird exhibit award - made of cow bones, communion chips and pennies.

They had a special exhibit on Ukiyo-e, a genre of Japanese woodblock printing. The prints on display were from the Edo period in Japan (1603-1868). At first I was disappointed that there weren't many woodblocks on display (it was mostly prints) but as I walked through the exhibit, I was no longer disappointed.

It was fascinating to see the progress in art style from the early 1600s. New colors were added to the palette. The flat traditional style (as seen in many anime movies) gave way to introduction of a 3 dimensional perspective. The best part for me was the adjoining room where they had 2 complete series of woodblocks that made up one print each and demonstrated how each block added a certain color to that print. I can safely say that this is one art form I will not try - I lack the patience and imagination to think in so many layers.

RoRo was a very worthy museum visitor and slept through the entire visit:
"One of these is not like the others"


Following that, we lunched at Koriente and went to Halcyon for some cappuccino.

Silly picture of Ro at the coffee shop:
My head is bigger than a cup!