Dear customers and friends,
This is Shukado Newsletter No.2 (we changed the title from Japanese-finearts.com Newsletter)
Ohayo Gozaimasu,Good morning from Ginza,Tokyo
This is the first newsletter for you in year 2008, let me say "a Happy New Year" to you and I hope that 2008 will be a very happy and prosperous year for all of you.
Let me talk about continuation of our family business history of the first newsletter.
Although my father was brought up in the house where Kakejiku scrolls and antique books were scattered around everywhere, he did not succeed his family business immediately when he became a grown-up. As far as I know, he was helping his father’s business since his childhood, but he was not thinking about making it as his lifetime job.
When my father was a university student at Kyoto University, he belonged to the rugby club there. He ran very fast and was a very good rugby player. He is still proud of his fast running. At the time of his graduation, all graduates faced a hiring slump and it was so difficult to find a job. However, the rugby club had a good tradition that graduates help new graduates to find jobs and my father got a job at a sugar refining company with such help. He was assigned to the Kyushu office and spent many relaxing times there. In his late twenties, he was called back to Kyoto by his elder bother to help their family business and made a full-fledged start in his career as an antique fine arts dealer.
I also did not start my career as an art dealer straight after graduation from University. I wanted to be a filmmaker at that time. Unfortunately, the Japanese film industry was facing a very difficult time and my dream did not come true. Then I wanted to do something where I can contribute to society and joined in the farmer collective after my graduation from university. In my 30’s, I became engaged in the business related to computers which I had been enjoying as a hobby since my childhood. Finally, 4 or 5 years ago, I decided to succeed my father’s business.
In these years, I have seen tens of thousands of antique Japanese fine arts and various art pieces and I have also been engaged in purchasing and selling wide-ranged art pieces. Although I believe that I have acquired a certain level of knowledge about Japanese fine arts, I am still in the learning process as a professional art dealer. I am striving to do my best to do my job with some help from my father and other experts of various associations and groups in this field. I am also very happy to receive comments and queries from anyone concerned.
About a half month has passed since the opening of our website in November and we have added some items to our online shopping line-ups for each category.
I will make my best effort to introduce more excellent items from wider ranged genre to you on our website so that you can feel Japanese fine arts closer, so please keep checking it!
Shukado’s recommended item of this week is :
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/item/list2/107006610/
This set of byobu screens is used by someone in the Edo period. The scenes of the Tales of Genji are depicted on this pair of screens.
The Tales of Genji is often mentioned as the oldest long novel in the world history. This story was written by Murasaki Shikibu who was a court lady in the Heian Period. It is concerned with the life and loves of Prince Genji and the affairs of his children and grandchildren. It is written in a prose style, with a vocabulary of more than 12,000 words (more than one million letters in Japanese alphabet), with nearly 800 embedded poems.
The Tales of Genji has been giving enormous impacts on Japanese culture and the story is published in modern language and still read by many people.
This year is the 1000th year since Mirasaki Shikibu wrote this story and many conferences where academics gather from all over the world will be held.
Being such a popular story, the Tales of Genji is often depicted in daily furnishings and decoration items and this artwork is one of those furnishings created in the Edo period.
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As always, we appreciate your continuing support for our activities, and wish you a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2008!
Chiaki Tanaka
Shukado Co., Ltd.
Online Gallery
"Japanese-FineArts.com by Shukado"
http://www.japanese-finearts.com
e-mail: info@japanese-finearts.com
address: 7F Sone bld. ,6-4-8 Ginza
Chuo-ku,Tokyo 104-0061 JAPAN
TEL ****( international number )+81-3-3569-3620
FAX ****( international number )+81-3-3569-3621
Online Gallery SYUKADO (Japanese page, but please visit and order via email.)
http://www.syukado.jp
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