For big fan of ancient Buddhist art, especially for those who hunt National treasures, it was very exciting season and busy to go to museums where hold the exhibition during Golden week holiday. I went to Tokyo National Museum in Ueno park to see the Exhibition of National Treasures from Yakushi-ji Temple. Last week, I went to Shin-Yakushi-ji Temple to see the Twelve generals, and this time, I could see the bronze sculptures of Nikko(日光), means the sun, and Gakko（月光）, means the moon, made in Hakuo period (A.D.672-686) as National Treasures.

That’s a good chance that you’ll be able to see the back shot of the sculptures. In most cases, a statue set on the proper place in the hall of temple, you would not be able to see it from behind of it. However, in this exhibition, every statues were standing alone and displayed without their nimbus, besides, there was a deck in front of the Nikko and Gakko so that visitors could see on the same level with both of statues. So I could tell the difference of these looking between the one when I saw on the deck and the other when I could see from lower point.

The appearance of Buddha statue changes depending on where you look at it from. I walked around every bodhisattva statue to find out the best view, but it was hard to decide it. As bodhisattva statue twisted the body, so the outlines of the body gradually changed at every step I took. I enjoyed the variety of the lines.

At the Kichijouten (吉祥天), is also designated National Treasure, booth, it was hard to see it because a lot of people gathered in front of the Kichijouten picture like a wall. The museum staffs made the visitors move along not to stack in front of it, but the visitors tried to stay there as much as possible. Indeed, it was worth watching.

The number of works in this exhibition was small, but almost of them were designated as National Treasure or Important Cultural Properties. It must be rare chance to see them at once, I do recommend you go there. This exhibition is showing untill June 8, 2008.

After watching the Exhibition of Yakushi-ji temple, I went to another exhibition whoch was held at the same time in Tokyo National Museum on “The Lantingji Xuin(蘭亭序)”, which is one of the most well-known East Asian style Calligraphy works, but as I was exhausted to see the Yakushi-ji’s works, I couldn’t concentrate on the works of the exhibition “The Lantingji Xuin”. It was a pity that this exhibition will finish on May 6th, but I was relieved to know that another exhibition will be held at Edo-Tokyo Museum in this July named “The Palace Museum. A well-known treasure on Calligraphy” and will display “The Lantingji Xuin” works. I hope to see them again.

NTT DoCoMo Inc., one of cell phone service providers in Japan, announced to start its new corporate logo at the beginning of July. The DoCoMo’s new logo consists circular shaped lowercases, changed its brand color into red named Docomo red.

When I looked at the current logo design at first, I thought it was a unique logo design. I loved its funny style which mixed uppercases and lowercases and dots along with the letters. I’m going to buy the next Docomo’s model, but it’s a pity I can’t see the current logo any more. I thought the brand name would be better just only “docomo” without “NTT”.

After leaving from Shojudo (see previous topic), I went to Shin-Yakushi-ji Temple in a bit of hurry to get in time for closing time. The master of Shojudo told me it should took around 30 minutes by walk. It was hot day, so I was slightly sweaty. Japanese wisteria trees along the street budded and was almost blooming. To take a short cut, I went through a path linked to the hill where Shin-Yakushiji Temple stands on quietly. I felt Shin-Yakushiji was smaller than I expected.

The front door of the main hall was closed, so I entered to the inside from left side, and then I could see the Juni-Shinsho statues: The twelve divine generals, stood on the floor surrounding the Yakushi-nyorai statue. The inside of the room was dark, but a few candles lit the statues, I was impressed. I couldn’t wait to start watching closely, even though I should have pray the principal statue before watching them. I was really into these statues.

I guessed some of Japanese Mangas and animations had much influenced by the Buddha statue images. For example, the Bassara general, which is one of the Twelve divine generals, reminded me of the Katsuhiro Otomo’s “AKIRA”, which is SF manga. While the Four Heavenly Kings of Todai-ji Temple reminded me of the Gundam, which is the most well known Japanese robot animation, and I could find some common characteristics between these images.

One of the reasons I like the Juni-Shinsho statues was that every statue has its own characteristic looking each. They were soldiers to protect Yakushi-nyorai. I thought they seemed to play their roll saving the principal statue Yakushi-nyorai as if the characters in a fantasy story would try to save a heroine.

My short trip to Nara was very good and comfortable because fabulous weather and the brilliant green leaves on the trees made me feel good.

I’d visited to almost of famous temples in Nara city, but the last one I’ve never visited before was Shin-Yakushiji, which is famous for several Buddha statues designated National Treasures such as Yakushi-Nyorai and Juni-Shinsho: The twelve divine generals, So I’d been looking forward to seeing them.

At the JR Nara station, when I looked for a map for tourists to Nara, I happened to get a free sightseeing guidebook of Nara city. I found an interesting photo on an ink stick, which was called Sumi in Japan, and I decided to go to the shop before visiting to Shin-Yakushiji. The shop’s name was Shoujudo “松寿堂” located in an old town. It took about ten minutes to go there from the station by foot.

I hesitated to enter the shop for a while because its facade seemed to be an old-established and really high-toned, but the owner was very happy and welcomed to enter the shop. The inside of the shop was very beautiful and traditional Japanese style, there were many Japanese-traditional furnitures such as wooden step-like chest of drawers.

The master showed me some products, which were the same ones on the guidebook, and explained how to make them. According to the master, the Sumi made in Nara is called Nara Sumi, which has been for more than 600 years since Muromachi period to provide for demand from the temples, mainly Kofuku-ji temple, in Nara area. Shojudo has been making Nara Sumi scince 1865, Edo period, and designated as a royal warrant shop. There were a few Sumi makers in this district a few years ago, but now, Shojudo is the only shop around there. And then, he showed me a Sumigata, the decorative wooden molds made from Asian Nashi, Asian pear, used to form ink sticks.

As I remembered that Prof. Hermann Zapf used a Japanese ink stick in the movie “The Art of Hermann Zapf”, I told him that I’ve heard some of Calligraphers not only East-Asian style but also European style used a Japanese Sumi as a black ink. Then I proposed him that he would introduce Sumi to Calligraphers who lives in Europe area. The master was very interested in this topic.

I bought two pieces of Sumi that shaped lovely Japanese deer, which lived in Nara Park and was considered sacred of Kasuga Taisha shrine, in a small box of paulownia wood.
It was a pity that I didn’t have much time left to get until the Shin-yakushiji temple would be closed. I hoped I would like to visit again so that I could get enough time to chat with the master.

(Above) The wooden shop signages and “Noren: 暖簾”, which is a store curtain hanged on the shop entrance, read “古梅園: Kobaien”on another shop that I found out during return to the Nara station from Shin-Yakushuji temple. (Lower right) The letter “墨: Sumi”, which means ink stick.

Tokyo Type Directors Club (TDC) exhibition 2008 started on April 4, 2008 at ggg gallery in Ginza, Tokyo. There are many unique and interesting typography works and type designs contained TDC prize award winning works. Especially, award winning TDC prize Latin typeface design Frida, which was designed by Fernando De Mello Vargas who was a student of Reading type design course in UK, was very interesting multi lingual font. Frida supports Latin and Tamil scripts. I met Fernando at the party after the Christian Schwartz’s presentation in 5tanda-sonic, see previous article, but I didn’t have enough time to chat with him, so I emailed him.

And Jiyu Kobo, is one of the most remarkable type foundries in Japan and also known for making Hiragino family bundled on MacOSX, got the TDC prize for Japanese fonts series it made.

This exhibition continued through April 26(Sat.) and will be also held at ddd gallery in Osaka Dojima from June 13(Fri.) to July 23(Wed.), 2008.