Asakusa is a district in Taitō, Tokyo, Japan, famous for the Sensō-ji, a
Buddhist temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon. There are several other
temples in Asakusa, as well as various festivals, such as the Sanja Matsuri.
For many centuries, Asakusa used to be
Tokyo's leading entertainment district. During the Edo Period (1603-1867), when
the district was still located outside the city limits, Asakusa was the site of
kabuki theaters and a large red light district. In the late 1800s and early
1900s, modern types of entertainment, including movie theaters, set foot in
Asakusa.
The complex resembles the Edo-period site,
with several imposing gates, including the Kaminarimon or the Thunder Gate,
with its iconic giant red lantern, and a five-story pagoda. The giant red
lantern is 4 meters tall, 3.4 meters in circumference and weighs 670 kilograms.
The front of the lantern displays the gate's name, Kaminarimon. Painted on the
back is the gate’s official name, Fūraijin-mon. A wooden
carving depicting a dragon adorns the bottom of the lantern.
The Asakusa temple is dedicated to the
bodhisattva Kannon. According to legend, a statue of the Kannon was found in
the Sumida River in the year 628 by two fishermen, the brothers Hinokuma Hamanari
and Hinokuma Takenari. The chief of their village, Hajino Nakamoto, recognized
the sanctity of the statue and enshrined it by remodeling his own house into a
small temple in Asakusa so that the villagers could worship Kannon.
Every year on a weekend in mid May, a
festival takes place in the Asakusa area , called the Sanja Matsuri. It is one
of Tokyo’s most popular festivals. It is held in celebration of the three
founders of Sensoji Temple, who are enshrined next door to the Sensoji Temple
in Asakusa. Its prominent parades revolve around three mikoshi (portable
shrines), as well as traditional music and dancing. The procession of Sanja
Matsurifor the three mikoshi, begins from
Nakamise-Dōri towards the Kaminarimon. These three elaborate shrines honor and
represent the three men responsible for founding the Sensō-ji. During this
final day of the festival, thesethree
important mikoshi are split up in order to visit and bestow blessing to all 44
districts of downtown and residential Asakusa.
Nakamise Dori is a shopping street that
runs from the Kaminarimon right up to the Senso-ji Temple. Around 90 stores
line up along the 250 meter long strip, transforming this street into the prime
shopping spot in Asakusa. Nakamise Dori is one of the oldest shopping streets
in Japan.
Various products are sold here, such as Japanese
chopsticks, wooden combs, fabrics, dolls,
art products and traditional Japanese snacks.
Further down between Asakusa and Ueno there
is Kappabashi-dori, also known just as Kappabashior Kitchen Town, a street which is almost
entirely populated with shops supplying the restaurant trade. These shops sell
everything from knives and other kitchen utensils, mass-produced crockery,
restaurant furniture, ovens, and decorations, through to esoteric items such as
the plastic display food (sampuru) found outside Japanese restaurants.
If you’re after some reasonably priced
traditional pottery, kitchen utensils, sake or tea sets, chopsticks or knives, you
won’t leave disappointed.
Tokyo is officially known as a "metropolitan
prefecture", which differs from and combines elements of a city and a
prefecture, a characteristic unique to Tokyo. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous
metropolitan area in the world.
The Metropolitan area of Tokyo is a cultural hub bursting
with historical traditions versus the relatively new cities’ buildings and huge
shopping obsession.
With over 13,000,000 people Tokyo is known as one of mega cities in the
world. Many people commute from neighbor cities to Tokyo. During the daytime,
the population swells by over 2.5 million as workers and students commute from
adjacent areas.
In Tokyo, there are 49 buildings and structures that stand taller
than 180 metres. Skyscrapers are a relatively recent phenomenon in Japan. Due
to Tokyo's location on the Pacific and Eurasian tectonic plates, it is prone to
earthquakes. This caused many of the buildings to be lower in height than those
of major cities of its size.
However, this fact has not deterred Tokyo from building
skyscrapers, and the modern-day city boasts more high-rise buildings than just
about any other city in Asia - possibly even the world. Engineering is a key
feature of Tokyo's skyscrapers, taking precedence over height and beauty.
Tokyo Tower is a communications and observation tower in the
Shiba-koen district of Minato, Tokyo, Japan. At 332.9 metres, it is the
second-tallest structure in Japan. The structure is an Eiffel Tower-inspired
lattice tower that is painted white and international orange to comply with air
safety regulations. Built in 1958, the tower's main sources of income are
tourism and antenna leasing. Over 150 million people have visited the tower.
At the center of Tokyo, the Tokyo Imperial Palace is located
as the primary residence of the Emperor of Japan. It is a large park-like area
located in the Chiyoda ward of Tokyo and contains buildings including the main
palace, the private residences of the Imperial Family, an archive, museums and
administrative offices.
It is built on the site of the old Edo Castle. The total
area including the gardens is 1.15 square kilometres. The modern palace is designed
by Japanese architect Shōzō Uchii and was completed in 1993. The Palace
complexcontains buildings including the
main palace and other buidlings. The palace is surrounded by a water-filled moat and
tree-covered grounds - a precious taste of nature within the bustling
metropolitan city.
I sat with Leonardo in a sunny afternoon
in a café in Milan, at the Piazza Mercanti (Market Square). The square dates
back to the 12th and 13th centuries and was the commercial centre of the city.
Various traders, such as bakers, cobblers, and tailors conducted their business
here. Leonardo, as usual was in his dandy
style and his perfumed air, wearing a rose-pink tunic.
He seemed at ease with himself, sipping
his cappuccino.
I asked him:
“ The first thing people want to know is
about the Mona Lisa painting. People are not sure who she actually is, who is
she?”
Leonardo:
“She is Lisa, a Florence born woman whom
married in her teens to a cloth and silk merchant who later became a local
official, she was a mother to five children and led a comfortable ordinary
middle-class life. You can see her clothing is rather simple and ordinary and her
gown,the scarf around her neck does not
indicates her aristocratic standing.”
I said:
“Mona Lisa is very famous for her smile.
But there are people who see her faint smile as a sad smile.”
Leonardo:
“I painted it by using the “sfumato”
technique which translated means ‘without lines or borders, in the manner of
smoke’. In this technique I did not use
an outline, but used different tones and
shades of paint to create an illusion oflight and shadow. Starting with dark undertones I built the illusion of
three-dimensional features through layers and layers of thin semi-transparent
glazes. You used darker shades to highlight features and borders of the
subject.”
I said:
“Probably because of this sfumato
technique both the eyes and the mouth were prominent features. When the viewer
looks at the eyes, the mouth falls under the viewer’s peripheral vision and
therefore the features of the mouth are not clear, this along with a little
shading at the cheek bones make the mouth look like a smile. But once the
viewer focuses on the mouth, the smile disappears, as it was not meant to be a
smile.”
Leonardo:
“That is probably why some people see
her smile as a sad smile.”
I said:
“ Aside from paintings you are also well
known for your ideas on engineering, anatomy, geometry, and other scientific
observations of nature.
You once presented King Francois of
France with one of your robotic lions.It was an amazing feat of engineering, it moved its head, shook its tail
and opened its jaws. When François was invited to tap the lion with his sword,
its body opened to reveal a mass of lily flowers. Considering the technology
available to you, the lion was nothing short of a miracle. “
Leonardo, talking a bit proudly:
“I also told Ludovico Sforza, the Duke
of Milan, that I can share my secrets of my war machine inventions, I can
construct bridges which are very light and strong and very portable with which to
pursue and defeat an enemy... I can also make a kind of cannon, which is light
and easy of transport, with which to hurl small stones like hail... I can
noiselessly construct to any prescribed point subterranean passages — either
straight or winding — passing if necessary under trenches or a river... I can
make armored wagons carrying artillery, which can break through the most
serried ranks of the enemy. In time of peace, I believe I can give you as
complete satisfaction as anyone else in the construction of buildings, both
public and private, and in conducting water from one place to another. I can
execute sculpture in bronze, marble or clay. Also, in painting, I can do as
much as anyone, whoever he may be.”
I said:
“Bravo, but you are also known as a slow
painter and notorious for leaving your
work unfinished, like “the Virgin and Child with St Anne”, “St Jerome in the
Wilderness”, “The Adoration of the Magi” and the Bronze Horse commissioned by
Ludovico Sforza. Your reputation for not finishing things meant that you no
longer received big commissions.”
Leonardo:
“Details make perfection, and perfection
is not a detail. For instance, experience shows us that the air must have
darkness beyond it and yet it appears blue. If you produce a small quantity of
smoke from dry wood and the rays of the sun fall on this smoke, and if you then
place behind the smoke a piece of black velvet on which the sun does not shine,
you will see that all the smoke which is between the eye and the black stuff
will appear of a beautiful blue colour. And if instead of the velvet you place
a white cloth smoke, that is too thick smoke, hinders, and too thin smoke does
not produce, the perfection of this blue colour.”
I said:
“ It seems that you love nature very
much. The Mona Lisa painting has a natural landscape background, there is a
winding road and a bridge. The landscape seems wild and there is uninhabited space of
rocks and water which stretches to the horizon, at the level of the Mona Lisa's
eyes.”
Leonardo:
“Nothing originates in a spot where
there is no sentient, vegetable and rational life; feathers grow upon birds and
are changed every year; hairs grow upon animals and are changed every year,
excepting some parts, like the hairs of the beard in lions, cats and their
like. The grass grows in the fields, and the leaves on the trees, and every
year they are, in great part, renewed. So that we might say that the earth has
a spirit of growth; that its flesh is the soil, its bones the arrangement and
connection of the rocks of which the mountains are composed, its cartilage the
tufa, and its blood the springs of water. The pool of blood which lies round
the heart is the ocean, and its breathing, and the increase and decrease of the
blood in the pulses, is represented in the earth by the flow and ebb of the
sea; and the heat of the spirit of the world is the fire which pervades the
earth, and the seat of the vegetative soul is in the fires, which in many parts
of the earth find vent in baths and mines of sulphur, and in volcanoes, as at
Mount Aetna in Sicily, and in many other places."
I said:
“ You are also known to love animals
very much, you even questioned the morality of eating animals when it was not
necessary for health. The mere idea of
permitting the existence of unnecessary suffering, still more that of taking
life, was abhorrent to you. Giorgio Vasari told us how when in Florence you
passed places where birds were sold you would frequently take them from their
cages with his own hand, and having paid the sellers the price you would let
them fly away in the air, thus giving them back their liberty.”
Leonardo, his face glowing:
“Aside from that, I was also
thinkingabout how to make a flying
machine learning from the movement and the configuration of the bird’s wings. What
are the differences in air pressure above and beneath a bird’s wing, and how
might this knowledge enable man to make a flying machine?
The flying machine must imitate no other
than the bat, because the web is what by its union gives the armour, or
strength to the wings.
If you imitate the wings of feathered
birds, you will find a much stronger structure, because they are permeable;
that is, their feathers are separate and the air passes through them. But the
bat is aided by the web that connects the whole and is not permeable.”
I said:
“The Last Supper was painted literally
hundreds of times throughout art history, by different artists in different
styles. Your Last Supper is seen more natural and dynamic than the rest. Judas is
fully included in the group, rather than separated, and the figures are engaged
in lively interaction.”
Leonardo:
“It is the moment after Jesus said ”One
of you shall betray me…”.
The painting shows the emotions of love,
dismay, and anger, or rather sorrow, at the apostlesfailure to grasp what Jesus means. Bartholomew who was drinking and has
left the glass in its position and turned his head towards Jesus. James,
twisting the fingers of his hands together turns with stern brows to Andrew. And Andrew, with his hands spread open
shows the palms, shrugs his shoulders up his ears making a mouth of
astonishment. Thomas thrusts himself with finger extended as if to prod Jesus to
explain himself more clearly. Peter speaks into John's ear and as John
listens to him, Peter holds a knife in one hand. Judas is grasping a small bag of the 30
pieces of silver he has been paid to betray Jesus and hasknocked over the salt pot - another symbol of
betrayal. Philip is asking “Lord, is it I?”Jesus replies, “He that dippeth his hand with
me in the dish, the same shall betray me”.We see Jesus and Judas simultaneously reaching toward a plate that lies
between them, even as Judas defensively backs away.”
I said: “ Thanks Leonardo for the chat, I see
you would be remembered in history as “The epitome of a Renaissance man”.
This is an imaginery interview in memory
of Leonardo da Vinci.
Milan Duomo is the cathedral church of
Milan, Italy. It is dedicated to Santa Maria Nascente (St Mary of the Nativity).
It is the most impressive structure in Milan. Standing tall in Piazza del
Duomo, it took more than 600 years to build. The front facade of the Duomo was
completed only in the 19th century.
This cathedral is a genuine Gothic
masterpiece with more than 3,500 statues of saints, animals and monsters, and
135 towers stretching towards the heavens.
The roofline dissolves into openwork
pinnacles that are punctuated by a grove of spires, topped with statues that
overlook the city. The main spire is 109 meters high. These can all be
investigated up close on a breathtaking walk on the roof.
The most famous of the statues on the roof is
the Madonnina (Little Madonna), a copper statue of the virgin Mary covered with
3900 pieces of gold leaf. It was cast in 1774 by goldsmith Giuseppe Bini and
sculptor Giuseppe Perego. The statue, four meters and sixteen centimeters tall
, was placed on top of the cathedral's tallest spire.
The Duomo's most imposing element, the
front façade facing Piazza del Duomo, was completed in the 19th
century. The façade is baroque up to the first order of windows, and neo-Gothic
above. The five ornated bronze doorways provide a magnificent entrance to the
Duomo. Each of the five bronze doors was
sculpted by a different artist. The central one is the oldest and was decorated with
floral Gothic reliefs by Ludovico Pogliaghi. The panels on the doors depict
episodes in the lives of the virgin Mary, Saint Ambrose (patron of Milan) and
Saint Charles Borromeo, as well as scenes from the history of Milan and the
construction of the cathedral.
The inside of Milan's Duomo is expansive
and magnificent. There are five large naves divided by fifty-two pillars - one
for each week of the year - that support the cross vaulted ceiling.
Above the apse (the arched part above the
altar) there is a spot marked with a red lightbulb. This marks the spot where
one of the nails of Jesus’ crucifixion was placed.
The American writer and journalist Mark
Twain one time visited Milan and the Duomo, he was very impressed by the Duomo
and describes it in his travel book “Innocents Abroad” as follows:
“What a wonder it is!
So grand, so solemn, so vast!
And yet so delicate, so airy, so graceful!
A very world of solid weight, and yet it
seems ...a delusion of frostwork that might vanish with a breath!... “
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