Unexpected Smiles: Seven Types of Humor in Japanese Paintings
Unexpected Smiles: Seven Types of Humor in Japanese Paintings is on view October 18, 2017, through January 28, 2018, in the Harnett Museum of Art, University of Richmond Museums. Featuring forty-eight paintings on hanging scrolls, the works in this exhibition illustrate how humor developed in Japan from the 1700s to the early 1900s. The seven categories of humor are: parody, satire, personification, word-play, fantasy, exaggeration, and playfulness. The paintings have been chosen from private and public collections in the United States. Some of the artists included are famous, such as Sȏtatsu, Hakuin, Shȏhaku, Jakuchȏ, Rengetsu, Nantenbȏ, and Kodȏjin, while others are little-known. Together they display a great variety of styles and subjects with the single common point of humor.
