Netsuke: Japanese Art in Miniature

Fitzwilliam Museum

The truth is that some of these pieces are so filled with emotion and so ingenuously sculpted that they do deserve critical attention. As a starting point, one could approach this exhibition as having intensity of emotion as its primary subject. Nearly every netsuke, whether gawky child or gruseome beast, appears caught in the rush of a moodswing. That these feelings, and their visual brilliance, are embedded in essentially lifeless and tacky porcelain demonstrates how amateur technique needn’t be limiting. There is too much of a tendency to value art for its delicacy and detail, a fussy conservatism which a modest show like this one helpfully evades. But our connection with this art can only go so far. On the one hand, we have a sympathetic experience with these netsuke; on the other they remain weirdly remote, the inanimate inhabitants of another culture altogether.