Published: 03/03/2024 By Allan Fuller
The next talk to be hosted by the Arts Society South-West London is to be given by Professor Marie Conte-Helm BA, MA, FRSA on the subject “The Art of the Japanese Garden from Tradition to Modernity.”
It is taking place on Monday 11 March at 8pm at Dryburgh Hall on Dryburgh Road, next to the Putney Leisure Centre(and by Zoom).
Japan’s gardens are world famous. Nature and artifice are combined in both intimate spaces and grand-scale gardens that surround palaces and Buddhist temples. Stone is used to provide structure, water to represent the life-giving force and plants to give colour throughout the seasons. The famous Zen-inspired dry landscape gardens by contrast are packed with symbolic content.
Historical, religious and philosophical influences have informed the Japanese approach to the visual arts but the lecture will also draw upon wider examples to illustrate the distinctive qualities that the Japanese have brought to garden design in both modern domestic settings and Japanese gardens abroad.
Professor Conte-Helm is a widely published and long-established lecturer on many aspects of Asian Art and East-West Encounters. She was Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation from 1999-2011 and more recently served as Executive Director of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group. She has received honours from both the UK and Japan for services to UK-Japan relations.
The talk will also be available to watch on zoom and you can find details details of how to register on the society’s web site. www.theartssocietyswlondon.org.uk