Mechtild Mertz | CRCAO - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Mechtild Mertz

Wood species identification of the sculptures of Anjô-ji temple

日本の木と伝統木工芸Nihon no ki to dentô mokkôgei

Journal of Asian Humanities at Kyushu University

A collaboration between wood anatomists and art historians, this report investigates Japanese sta... more A collaboration between wood anatomists and art historians, this report investigates Japanese statues dating to the tenth to twelfth century now preserved in American, British, Canadian, and Japanese museums and private collections. This is the first article in any language concerning a "group" that at present comprises eighteen wooden icons we place in the genre of shinzō (statues of kami, i.e., divinities). They are related in terms of style, physical features including size and carving technique, andthe impetus for this study-rare wood choices. Some, perhaps all, are related in terms of provenance. A 1930 illustrated catalogue for an exhibition of Shinto statues and objects, the Shinzō shinki zuroku, describes two of the statues as the kami embodiments (shintai) of the historical figures posthumously known as Shōtoku Taishi and his consort. The Catalogue also notes that they are said to have come from a [Shinto] shrine in Izumo (northern Honshu) and are made of Japanese bigleaf magnolia (hōnoki / Magnolia obovata) or possibly ancient kusunoki (camphor wood). Over several years, working closely with institutions and ownersthree right up until the month this report was written-wood samples of twelve of the eighteen statues were microscopically tested with the permission of the owners (all but two were tested by authors); four have been carbon-14 dated. The combined results of the tests are astounding. Ten of the twelve are made of magnolia (mokuren-zoku / Magnolia sp.), one of (sumomo-zoku / Prunus sp.), and one of Japanese chestnut (kuri / Castanea crenata). These woods are not as yet recorded for use in shinzō and as such represent a topic worthy of serious study. Carbon-14 dating confirms the dates as circa tenth to eleventh century (for three) and eleventh to twelfth century (for one). In addition to details about the choice of woods this study discusses the shinzō in terms of categorization, iconography, historical definitions and viewpoints, acquisition and provenance, and suggests avenues for further research among scholars and the institutions and individuals who care for the icons today. The authors hope that this article will facilitate further understanding of scientific research such as wood identification and dendrochronology, and its applications to the religious, historical, economic, ecological, and stylistic study of icons. On Shinzō: Repositories for the Divinity The two characters 神 and 像, meaning "god" and "image or statue" respectively, form the term for "deity icons," in Japanese, shinzō, and in Chinese, shenxiang. VOLUME 7 128 JOURNAL OF ASIAN HUMANITIES AT KYUSHU UNIVERSITY Japanese 神 is also pronounced "kami," a term applied to a vast range of divinities, spirits, and natural phenomena. In premodern China, Korea, and Japan, 神像 was a sweeping term that referred to a wide range of images of local gods and divinities from many religious and ritual traditions but is not typically applied to images of Buddhist divinites. In Japanese, shinzō refers to statues of the kami, and the term butsuzō 仏像 to Buddhist statues. Each has their own distinct nomenclature and appearance and yet next to some kami representations statues of lesser Buddhist divinities such as female or male deva 1 (henceforth "deva") or guardian figures, We are grateful to Sugiyama Junji, Itoh Takao, and Sorimachi Hajime of Kyoto University for their wood identification expertise in evaluating the Shinto statues at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, and Princeton University Art Museum. We are also indebted to the conservators and curators at the following museums and collections in North America and Europe who collaborated with us-at times over several years:

Redécouvrir le bois: une approche technique, esthétique et artistique des traditions artisanales

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2004

Anatomical Database and Atlas of Chinese Woods

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Mar 1, 2022

Eighteen Heian-period Shinto Statues Related to Shōtoku Taishi from the Izumo region

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Apr 1, 2022

Ki 木 le bois

CNRS Éditions, 2014

Publication d’un ouvrage sur la culture du bois au Japon

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Apr 2, 2021

Identification microscopique du bois, un regard sur l'âme de bois de la sculpture bouddhique chinoise et japonaise

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2007

Wood identification of Chinese Buddhist statues in the Philadelphia Museum of Art

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Sep 15, 2021

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2007

The present study of wooden Buddhist sculptures from Japan and China is based on the microscopic ... more The present study of wooden Buddhist sculptures from Japan and China is based on the microscopic identifi cation of the wood species. Research on the wood species of Japanese Buddhist sculptures has a forty-year history. In the 1960s Kohara Jirō, a wood anatomist and pioneer of wood identifi cation of Buddhist sculpture, identifi ed the wood species of 615 sculptures. Based on these results, a fi rst attempt was made to describe the evolution of wood species utilized from the Asuka to the Heian period, also taking into account regional differences. Presently, this research is being continued and completed by research teams in Japan composed of art historians and wood anatomists. Buddhist sculptures from China, however, have not yet been investigated in this way. In fact, a great number of Chinese wooden Buddhist sculptures are preserved in Western museums. For the present study we were allowed to collect samples for wood identifi cations of more than thirty-fi ve Chinese Buddhist sculptures from several European museums. Wood identifi cation and the discussion regarding the utilization of various wood species may provide historians of East Asian art worldwide with new insights and valuable information concerning the era, location, and spiritual context in which the sculptures were made.

Case study of Wood Identification of Japanese Shinto Statues Owned by the Honolulu Museum of Art

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Oct 1, 2021

Wood Species used in Traditional Japanese Architecture

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2015

Japanese Wood and Carpentry - Rustic and Refined

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2020

XXIe colloque d'Archéométrie du GMPCA, Apr 18, 2017

HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial| 4.0 International License

Analysis of Wood Species in the Collection

In the dual capacity of art historian and wood expert, I was commissioned to identify the wood sp... more In the dual capacity of art historian and wood expert, I was commissioned to identify the wood species of thirty Buddhist sculptures housed in the museum's collection. In 2010, Takao Itoh's and my findings were published in the museum’s catalog, “Wisdom Embodied” [pp. 216-225]. The catalog received the Permanent Collection Award 2010, given by the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC).

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Sep 20, 2016

Wood Identification of a Japanese Deity Statue of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

SPring-8/SACLA Research Report