Mouse

I will be honest with you. Unfortunately, we focus on Western art. I really regret that and I can blame only my Eurocentric education here. But now in DailyArt we are working hard to be less Western-centered. When I came across this beautiful painting of the mouse, I just couldn't resist it.

Shibata Zeshin, Japanese master of lacquer, loved mice. He painted them in groups and one by one; he painted one as a monk, another on the shoulder of the god Daikokuten. The one from the British Museum is this fluffy one. Zeshin was one of the first Japanese artists to become known in the West while alive. He began his training in the arts in 1817 at age eleven. Along with instruction in traditional painting he apprenticed to a lacquer maker and he learned the centuries-old craft. Drawn to European oil paintings, which had begun to trickle into Asia as in his times Japan opened itself for the West, he started to mix these two traditions. He took the viscous resin and turned it into a painting medium. He painted with the lacquer on panels and on paper in exhilarating colors that had heretofore not been seen. He stayed loyal to traditional subject matter, however, and to his favorite subject, the mouse.

Beautiful, isn't it?

P.S. And here you will find all you must know about Japanese erotic art, shunga (18+).