Sanzo Wada's Sketches of Occupations in the Showa Era

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Sanzo Wada was a 20th century Japanese artist. He was a painter (I previously featured his painting South Wind as the second image in the series of Sailor paintings), worked on color theory, and was an educator. After the war he eventually also did set and costume design, winning an Academy Award for his work on the film Gates of Hell.

He is best known for his Showa Shokugyo E-zukushi (Sketches of Occupations in the Showa Era), a series of wood block prints which show both modern and traditional occupations. These images are from that series.

Sanzo Wada

Perfume do Invisível

Get ready for a limpid weekend with Céu.

 

Small garage restaurant

This is a small restaurant in Japan that is ran by a single woman. Apparently, they have a lot of small shops like this. It reminded me of my youth; I grew up in an Eastern European immigrant neighborhood and there were a lot of these sort of places. However, instead of using the garage, it would be the first-floor front room of a two-story house. I have fond memories of them.

  

Visions of the Garden of Eden

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The story of the Garden of Eden is a well-known tale and so it has appeared in art. When God created the world, he then created Adam, the first man. He decided Adam needed a companion, so he created all of the animals, but none were suitable companions for Adam. God then yanked a bone out of Adam and created Eve, the first woman, to be his companion. 

They moved into the Garden of Eden which was a veritable paradise on Earth. The only rule was that they couldn't eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge or the Tree of Life. However, one day a snake approached Eve and told her, I guess snakes could talk back then, that if she ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge that she would attain God-like wisdom. She then nagged (I assume it was the first historical example of wifey nagging) Adam into munching on the fruit as well.

Well, it turns out that didn't go according to plan because the knowledge they got was the knowledge of misery and death. Plus, their breaking of the rules pissed God off and he booted them out of the Garden and consigned them to a life of toil, hardship and death. Thanks a lot Eve, who knew that listening to a snake instead of the Creator would be a bad decision.

However, I'm a glass half full sort of a fellow and so, aside from the disease and poverty that Eve's snack unleashed, I'll try to highlight the positives from it. For example, in perusing the pictures of the Garden of Eden I noticed that all of the animals, hunter and hunted alike, frolicked about with each other implying that, as well as being paradise on earth, the Garden was also a hellhole of veganism. So, we can thank Eve for steaks, fried chicken and bacon. Bacon alone excuses a lot, right? 

Jambalaya (On the Bayou)

Get ready for a jollification weekend with
Betsy Chen, Leon Wong, Eric Shi, and Jing Ding.

 

Creole cookout in Tobago

This is a tour in Tobago which is an island laying of the northern coast of South America. It starts with breakfast and moves through the day, featuring several local chefs and dishes common to the island. 

  

Pyramids

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This is a collection of paintings of pyramids. They are mostly Egyptian, but some Mesoamerican pyramids are mixed in. Because a lot of mystical mumbo-jumbo surrounds pyramids they were harder to collect than I thought. There were an awful lot of images with UFOs hovering about, energy beams shooting out of them, and so forth. I ignored those.

Sundown

Get ready for a mistrusting weekend with Kenny Jobson.

 

September 11

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I was working in Tower 2 for Chuo Trust and Bank in 1993 during the first World Trade Center bombing; my one thought that day was “thank God, Dad is safe”. He worked in Tower 1 until a couple weeks before that bombing and fortunately was on the other side on lower Manhattan. It took me over 3 hours to walk down the stairs. 

Fast forward 8 years, and Dad was back at Cantor Fitzgerald in Tower 1. I knew he was dead and had to tell my family. There simply was not enough time for him to get to safety.

I was pregnant with my daughter and my father was over the moon to be a grandfather. Life was good, then it wasn’t. In the few moments after hearing the first plane hit the World Trade Center, I knew my life, my mother’s life, my siblings’ lives and my unborn child’s life had changed. Dad was gone. A 56 year young, father of 4, married to his college sweetheart and future grandfather was annihilated from Earth. Just gone in a few moments. – Kristen

 

Sailors

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These are paintings of merchant and military sailors. That is, working sailors rather than pleasure sailors. They are from different eras and nations.

The Sun Will Never Set on Our Love

Get ready for a luminescent weekend with The Juan MacLean.

 

Audio illusions

This is a discussion of how hearing works in certain situations. I was particularly interested in how the ear shape and placement assists in the determination of the direction of a sound.

 

Happy Lazy Worker Bee Day

The typical human, being an abnormally lazy creature, will counter intuitively not work on Labor Day. Instead they will take the day off, activate their BBQ grill, and cook various types of cow muscles on it. Hahaha... how stupid can you get? And no, I don't mean ordering the cow muscle to be cooked 'well done' instead of 'medium rare', rather I mean the name of the holiday is LABOR Day after all, and so why in the world would you think that means you take the day off instead of working? - The Robotolizer

  

Albert Guillaume paintings

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Albert Guillaume was a late 19th century/early 20th century French artist. He was primarily known for his posters, but he painted as well. The topic of his paintings was upper-class society nightlife. He was a caricaturist and many of the details in his paintings are amusing.    

Albert Guillaume