Lecture: Kimono Decoded Along Hiroshige's Tokaido Road
Japan's military shogunate government punished ostentatiously dressed non-samurai in the nineteenth when Hiroshige produced his masterpiece series of woodblock prints illustrating the fifty-three lodging stops of the Tokaido Road. Japanese textile scholar and independent curator and HCW club member Ann Marie Moeller '77 will explore how the kimono worn by Hiroshige's subjects proclaim their social status, how enforced "plainness" resulted in a sophisticated and subtle chic, and how commoners circumvented the shogun's sumptuary laws.
This lecture is presented in conjunction with the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery's exhibition Along the Eastern Road: Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido, and is made possible by a generous grant from the Japan Foundation. Free; no reservations required.