Thread by @danielmitsuiart
Clipped from https://x.com/danielmitsuiart/status/1878873914211717160
by @danielmitsuiart
Daniel Mitsui @danielmitsuiart 2025-01-13
Wedding at Cana, ink drawing on paper.
Daniel Mitsui @danielmitsuiart 2025-01-13
This is the fifth commission I have received to transpose a Christian subject from medieval European art into the style of Japanese art. Various Japanese woodblock prints of the 18th and 19th centuries were used for visual reference.
Daniel Mitsui @danielmitsuiart 2025-01-13
Paintings by Hinrik Funhof, Hieronymus Bosch, Gerard David and Bertram von Minden were among the occidental works that influenced the content and arrangement.
Daniel Mitsui @danielmitsuiart 2025-01-13
The Wedding at Cana is depicted in the middleground as a Japanese marriage ceremony, with the bride wearing the traditional garb, about to sip sake. Christ and Mary converse in the foreground, while a servant fills the six stone jars with water.
Daniel Mitsui @danielmitsuiart 2025-01-13
The images on the jars and on the folding screens that divide the sections of the drawing illustrate the theological significance of the Wedding at Cana.
Daniel Mitsui @danielmitsuiart 2025-01-13
Because the Sacrament of Marriage is so closely associated with the story of Adam and Eve (From the beginning of the creation God made them male and female; For this cause, a man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife; and they two shall be in one flesh)…
Daniel Mitsui @danielmitsuiart 2025-01-13
I drew on the golden screen behind the wedding party the creation of Adam, the creation of Eve and the temptation of them both.
Daniel Mitsui @danielmitsuiart 2025-01-13
The Church Fathers saw in the six jars a symbol of the six days of creation, and the designs on the jars (which are shaped like sake vessels) represent these: the creation of light, the firmament, the land and plants, the heavenly bodies, the birds and fish, and the beasts.
Daniel Mitsui @danielmitsuiart 2025-01-13
t. Augustine also saw in them a symbol of the six ages of the world, and his commentary I depicted on the green screen behind Christ and Mary. The ages are represented by Adam, Noah, Abraha, David, Daniel, and John the Baptist.
Daniel Mitsui @danielmitsuiart 2025-01-13
The inscription on the right side of the drawing reads: There was a wedding at Cana of Galilee. I used the translation of the New Testament into classical Japanese done by the Belgian missionary Emile Raguet in 1910.
Daniel Mitsui @danielmitsuiart 2025-01-13
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