Huang Goodman · Art Forgotten

Art Forgotten

Art from public museum collections. A mismatched real Japanese law, and some other factoids.

Every object, image and description comes from the museum's own catalogue record, and every object links to its original. Japanese records are machine-translated into English; the museum's Japanese is kept beside the translation because it is the authoritative form. Each law carries its official number and links to e-Gov 法令検索, the Japanese government's statute database.

Sake Pourer
{Sake Pourer · Seifū Yohei IV (Japanese, 1872–1951) · 1914–46 · Cleveland Museum of Art · CC0}

Like his father, Yohei IV also produced works with red or yellow monochrome glazes. His yellow-glazed works include this pair of sake pourers, a set of five drinking cups CMA 2022.217, and a sweets bowl molded into the shape of a chrysanthemum CMA 2022.218.

View the original at Cleveland Museum of Art →
The law
文化芸術基本法
Basic Act on Culture and the Arts
平成十三年法律第百四十八号 · Act No. 148 of 2001

Unusually for a Japanese statute it opens with a preamble, which states that finding joy in creating culture and living among it is an unchanging wish of people, and that culture contributes to world peace. Article 2 then sets the principles: the autonomy of those who make culture must be fully respected, and their creativity, standing and capacity considered.

The cool part. Article 2, paragraph 3 is the line worth reading twice. It says that creating and receiving culture is a right people are born with, and requires an environment in which citizens can appreciate, participate and create regardless of age, disability, economic situation, or the area they live in. Four barriers named in statute, one of which is your postcode. It puts the arts in the same grammatical register as infrastructure. Not a subsidy argued for each year, a standing obligation.

Verify at e-Gov 法令検索 →

Use it A motif small enough to blind-deboss, which is where restraint actually shows.

Description source: museum curator text — not generated