Tsuzuri Project donates to Kanazawa College of Art a high-resolution facsimile of Sotatsu’s “Screen with Scattered Fans,” to be displayed to the public with five previous works

TOKYO, November 27 2023—Canon Inc. announced today that the Tsuzuri Project (officially, the Cultural Heritage Inheritance Project), a joint project organized by the Kyoto Culture Association (NPO) and Canon, donated to the Kanazawa College of Art a high-resolution facsimile of “Screen with Scattered Fans” by Tawaraya Sotatsu—the original of which resides in the collection of Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Arts, Washington D.C., U.S.A. —as part of the project’s Stage 16. The facsimile will be displayed to the public at the university from Monday, November 27 to Friday, December 1, 2023, coupled with other five Tsuzuri facsimile screens.

Screen with Scattered Fans was painted in the Edo period (17th century) and features a number of fan paintings with various motifs, such as The Tale of Hogen, The Tale of Heiji, and Tales of Ise, pasted on a golden folding screen. As the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, which houses the original cultural property, forbids the collection to be taken out of the museum in accordance with the will of its founder, the original masterpiece cannot be seen without visiting the site. By producing its high-resolution facsimile, this artwork, considered to be a Japanese historical masterpiece, was “brought back” to Japan.

Canon’s EOS R5 full-frame mirrorless camera was used to capture images of the original work, after which Canon applied its proprietary color matching system and image processing. The facsimile was then output using large-format inkjet printers with 12-color pigment ink. Finally, expert Kyoto craftsmen applied gold to the facsimile and mounted it on folding screen frames, completing an extremely accurate reproduction of the original work. The life and the artworks of Tawaraya Sotatsu, the creator of this work, are said to have had certain ties with Kanazawa City, where the Kanazawa College of Art is located. The university will exhibit the donated work to the public on campus and utilize it in classes.

Considering this donation as an opportunity, from Monday, November 27 to Friday, December 1, including the donated work, a total of six high-resolution facsimile artworks, including “Pine Trees” by Hasegawa Tohaku, who was native to present-day Ishikawa Prefecture, will be exhibited to the public at the university. The originals of them are treated with extra care from the viewpoint of preservation, and opportunities for viewing them are limited. In this public exhibition, however, visitors can view the works up close without glass cases and take photos of them, thus experience them in a way that only high-resolution facsimiles allow.

Exhibition details

Tsuzuri Project works to be displayed

A high-resolution facsimile of “Screen of Scattered Fans” (Owned by Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. Original creator: Tawaraya Sotatsu)
A work of Tsuzuri Project Stage 16, donated to the Kanazawa College of Art

A high-resolution facsimile of “The Wind and Thunder Gods” (A national treasure of Japan. Owned by Kenninji Temple. Original creator: Tawaraya Sotatsu)

A high-resolution facsimile of “Wind God and Thunder God / Flowering Plants of Summer and Autumn” (Important cultural properties of Japan. Owned by Tokyo National Museum. Original creator: Ogata Korin / Sakai Hoitsu)^{1, 2}

A high-resolution facsimile of “Pine Forest” (A national treasure of Japan. Owned by Tokyo National Museum. Original creator: Hasegawa Tohaku)¹

A high-resolution facsimile of “Cypress Trees” (A national treasure of Japan. Owned by Tokyo National Museum. Original creator: Kano Eitoku)¹

A high-resolution facsimile of “Cooling off” (A national treasure of Japan. Owned by Tokyo National Museum. Original creator: Kusumi Morikage)

• 1.

  Created in the Joint-research Project on the Creation and Utilization of High-resolution Facsimiles of Cultural Properties by The National Institutes for Cultural Heritage and Canon Inc.

• 2.

  The originals of Wind God and Thunder God / Flowering Plants of Summer and Autumn currently exist as two separate pairs of screens for preservation reasons. In the high-resolution facsimile, the two artworks make the front and back side of a pair of folding screens to restore their original figures.

About the Tsuzuri Project

The Tsuzuri Project is a joint social contribution initiative organized by the Kyoto Culture Association (NPO) and Canon. Many of Japan’s precious ancient cultural assets have limited viewing opportunities, often because they have been moved overseas or are preserved in storage as designated national treasures. Combining Canon’s technical expertise in imaging, processing and output with the master craftsmanship of traditional Kyoto artisans, the Project produces high-resolution facsimiles. High-resolution facsimiles are donated to related recipients such as shrines, temples, local governments and museums. These cultural assets are available for a variety of purposes including public display and tangible educational materials. Works from artists including Katsushika Hokusai, Tawaraya Sotatsu and Ogata Korin, have been selected since, with 60 facsimiles produced and donated to date.

For more information, please visit the official Tsuzuri Project website:
https://global.canon/en/tsuzuri/

It is 6 p.m. on Oct. 23 — parents off from work and children out of school sat in a semicircle at Menlo Park Library. They listened avidly to the storyteller Roopa Mohan, who shared the story of Ganesha, a Hindu god with an elephant head, at the eighth annual Menlo Park Storytelling Festival.

Every year, Menlo Park Library invites storytellers from different backgrounds to celebrate storytelling with the local community throughout October and November. The festival champions traditional storytelling as an art form that not only allows the expansion of oral history but also gives listeners’ unique imaginative liberties. 

Mohan lived in India for 20 years before moving to the United States. Trained at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, she tells personal narrative, folktale, myth and tall tales related to food and culture. 

“As we listen to stories, we start telling our stories. We start sharing stories about family, about our heritage, about all kinds of things,” Mohan said. “When children experience this, it really broadens their world and it brings people closer.”

When hate crimes toward Asian Americans spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mohan joined other Asian American storytellers to start the Asian American Storytopia project for elementary school children, families and others. She also sits on the board of the Storytelling Association of California, which brings storytelling to underserved schools all over the state. 

“We came up with a plan to educate children with stories from all different Asian countries, so that people will embrace each other,” Mohan said. “I think it will expel racism and all those negative feelings that we see in our society.”

The festival gathered storytellers from both in and outside of California. At the final event on Friday, the audience enjoyed stories from performers based in Texas, Australia, South Korea and elsewhere through Zoom.

A week following Mohan’s performance, children and parents returned to hear from Olga Loya on Oct. 30. Loya invited the audience to take a fresh, personal look at life and death with a story about Día de los Muertos (day of the dead), along with family stories and other Latin American folk tales. 

Loya’s stories seek to help people overcome emotional and cultural boundaries. Instead of believing in what society says what one is capable of achieving, she encourages the audience to break stereotypes and be the author of their own story. 

When Loya was going to school, she was told that she could not go to college because of her family’s financial status. She did not let those words defeat her. Now, she writes her own story to inspire those in a position similar to the one she was once in. 

“People get discouraged when they have stuff like that happen,” Loya said. “I think it’s really important to hear somebody who has come through the other side talk about it. 

“Dancing through La Via” is one of Loya’s stories. It describes growing up in east Los Angeles, where substance abuse and gang violence are prevalent. 

“People need to tell more stories of surviving that,” Loya said. 

Tina Henson, the last in-person storyteller, regaled the audience with stories from a variety of Native traditions. A cloth adorned with drawings of bears, harvest and other symbols hung next to her while she spoke. Following the story, Henson also demonstrated a powwow dance and encouraged her audience to join one of the largest powwows in Northern California at Stanford next year. 

To Henson, storytelling means keeping her traditions alive and “reminding students that Native Americans aren’t just a part of history.”

“We’re very resilient. We’ve done what we had to still be here to be able to share our culture,” Henson said.

Henson attributed one source of inspiration for her storytelling to John Weaver, Menlo Park Library’s senior program assistant. Weaver was her librarian when she grew up in Livermore, and Henson remembered Weaver was always telling stories at the library. Part of Weaver’s mission was to assist in the library programs where children were encouraged to reach the goal of reading one hundred books.

“He made it so exciting and so fun,” Henson said.

At the Menlo Park Storytelling Festival, storytellers encouraged the young audience to pass stories of different cultures onto future generations.