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Writing box (suzuribako)

Writing box (suzuribako)

ca. 1700-1800

Son Man-jin, an acclaimed calligrapher in South Korea, brings a contemporary perspective to traditional art forms. He often transforms Chinese characters into abstract shapes, to the extent that the characters are no longer legible.

In this work, Son wrote two characters (“the useless”) in dark ink in the right half and saturated the left half with ink wash in varying shades, leaving an unpainted area to delineate another two characters (“use of”). The calligraphy references a quotation from the Daoist classic Zhuangzi (ca. 300 BCE): “All men know the use of the useful, but nobody knows the use of the useless.”
Lacquer
Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection
36.129.1
location
Now on view at the Asian Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Going For Gold, November 3, 2012 - December 8, 2013

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Fall and Winter in Japan", October 22, 2002 - February 23, 2003

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Spring and Summer in Japan",
February 28, 2002 - October 13, 2002

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum "Journeys in Landscape: Modern Art in Japan", November 26, 2004 - January 30, 2006

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Boundless: Stories of Asian Art, Feb. 8, 2020 - ongoing.

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

Learn more about Equity at SAM