Geïllustreerd verslag van een reis naar het westen 1803

Curator: Well, isn't that a beautiful book cover. Something about its imperfections just draws you in. Editor: It really does! It’s funny; the very first thing I notice is the faded blue of the paper – it's so soft, almost like looking at the sky just before dusk. What’s its story? Curator: This is "Geïllustreerd verslag van een reis naar het westen", or, Illustrated Account of a Journey to the West. It’s a print from 1803, made with ink on paper by Shiba Kōkan. Editor: Oh, Shiba Kōkan, fascinating! Knowing his influence, does this speak to broader artistic and intellectual currents? That calligraphic title adds an interesting formal element, too. It sort of anchors that hazy, almost dreamlike expanse of blue. Curator: Exactly. Kōkan was deeply influenced by Western art and science. Here we can see Eastern and Western styles blended— calligraphic text alongside Western art theories. He used Japanese artistic forms to create the visual information in his work about "the West." And in its original cultural context, images such as this opened new channels of imagination and exchange for their viewers, conveying what places or objects could look like with only a book cover as the point of reference. It makes the cover a talisman, almost, for accessing other worlds of thought. Editor: You're right; it's as though the journey began long before you even opened it. All that implied space…it activates something in the imagination, some yearning. Even knowing it’s paper, I just want to touch it! There’s a sensory memory evoked here somehow. Curator: I agree completely. That yearning hints at a timelessness. The images or ideas contained inside gained additional levels of power for their viewers, since it takes a great deal of cultural energy and resources to print this particular set of images into one bound collection of printed pages. That type of object inspires a certain devotion, almost like sacred books from centuries before, or religious texts that carried knowledge from place to place in eras when such knowledge was much more rare to access and transfer from mind to mind, place to place. Editor: Almost a feeling of intimacy—like holding centuries of stories and cultural memory in your hands. Thanks for sharing your knowledge! Curator: Thank you; you gave me an appreciation for the subtle allure of the materiality itself.