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context: lacquerwork > sources
The Art of Shibata Zeshin: The Mr and Mrs James E. O'Brien Collection at the Honolulu Academy of Arts
Obviously an exhibition catalogue. Weirdly, it's dominated by his painting - lacquerwork makes up maybe a quarter of the book, though these items are treated to the largest colour photos (which are of mediocre quality). The opening essays are lousy. I'm not inclined to think that the works shown are among his finest by any means. The catalogue makes no cross-reference to the repros, and the latter are not in any consistent order, so it's hard work reading it - and the descriptions rarely go beyond matters of dating and attribution, and when they do you'd rather they didn't, when for instance they claim that the image on a lacquered item (not a painting) is executed in "a few swift strokes", demonstrating that the writer has no understanding of lacquer at all.