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Japanese sliding doors at the Asian Art Museum are the Daily Pic by Blake Gopnik

Trompe l'oeil

The Daily Pic: Three centuries ago, Ogawa Haritsu paid close attention to what he wanted ignored.

Blake Gopnik

Updated Jul. 11, 2017 8:42PM ET / Published Aug. 21, 2013 3:31PM ET 

(Courtesy the Larry Ellison Collection)

Another work of Japanese art, again from San Francisco – this time from a show called “In the Moment: Japanese Art from the Larry Ellison Collection”, at the Asian Art Museum. I normally boycott one-collector shows: They almost always come close to mercenary sycophantism, and this one has moments that come closer than most. But I simply couldn’t resist Daily Pic-ing this pair of lacquered sliding doors, which were made by a revered master named Ogawa Haritsu (1663 –1747). The splendor of their trompe-l’oeil craft is obvious, using inlaid metal and ceramic to represent the softness of books. But what especially struck me is the scene’s background, whose coarse-grained wood is supposed to read as a neutral support, a no-place that the image simply floats on. And yet that surface that we are not supposed to register – “don’t look at me, I’m just planking” – has clearly been as carefully planned and constructed as the fancy “objects” that sit on it.

For a full visual survey of past Daily Pics visit blakegopnik.com/archive.

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