Por Jeff Britton | Reportero SDUN

With appropriate fanfare, taiko drummers welcomed opening night guests on the steps of the San Diego Museum of Art as another exotic culture is celebrated in Balboa Park. Later, these musicians were joined inside by a Japanese wood flute and the evocative sounds of the long 13-stringed instrument known as a koto.

It was all to launch a new, colorful exhibit by the museum and the University of San Diego, “Dreams and Diversions,” which concurrently shows some 400 prints from the two institutions’ permanent collections. They reflect San Diego’s strong ties to Japan, beginning with the forced opening of Japan to the West by Commodore Perry, whose Pacific fleet was based in this city. The subsequent dramatic cross-pollination of both cultures became the basis of Stephen Sondheim’s musical, “Pacific Overtures.” Also, San Diego was the destination for the first official Japanese ship to sail to the United States.

And what a gorgeous exhibit it is! Furthermore, it continues the trend begun by former director Derrick Cartwright to showcase SDMA’s rich permanent collections, such as the Toulouse-Lautrec retrospective on the opposite side of the building. The woodblock prints offer visitors a virtual journey along the Tokaido Road, which led from the ancient Imperial capital of Kyoto to Edo (now Tokyo) with 53 stations along the way, including Mount Fuji.

The sheer variety is amazing. Hishikawa’s earliest 17th century prints stand in marked contrast to those of later artists, including Hokusai, Hiroshige and right up to the sophisticated 20th century works of Hasui. Hasui was heavily influenced by the “light pictures” of Kiyochika, particularly those of night scenes, and one can see works by both artists in different galleries.

Woodblock painting came from China to Japan, but this style, which was a commercial art form used in book illustrations, found its own distinctive manner unique to Japan. Many were first rendered in black and white, but over time more colors were developed along with artistic details. The earliest themes in woodblock were from Kabuki Theatre, an exceedingly stylized performing art that incorporated music and dance.

All Kabuki actors were male, and some assumed those roles while others specialized in female parts. Kabuki plays were abundant, some very ephemeral, performed once and never restaged. Others became standards of the repertory, and the prints on view reveal actors drinking backstage as well as assuming dramatic poses onstage.

One gallery is chock full of landscapes, giving viewers a tour of the varied countryside. Van Gogh even did a replica of Hiroshige’s “Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge,” which tells you the pedigree of this art form.

As one arrives in Edo, a pagoda entry heralds the bawdy entertainment district where courtesans plied their trade. But these were no ordinary prostitutes, as evidenced by their elaborate kimonos and array of beauty accoutrements on display in cabinets adjoining the prints. Many of these women were quite famous and there was a pecking order of popularity, the more renowned having a coterie of attendants to make them even more alluring.

Particularly striking is the five-part series by Eizan known as “Courtesans of the Ogriya Brothel,” and another by Utamaro, “The courtesan Hanaogi strolling with her two young attendants,” who were undoubtedly necessary to maneuver her voluminous kimono. Utamaro had a penchant for doing mother and child portraits that tug at the heart and his depiction of these women shows obvious admiration for them.

In the final gallery, the early 20th century works of Hiroshi and Shozaburo show an evolution that now reflects a modern westernized aesthetic, symbolic and perhaps prescient of Japan’s powerhouse culture following World War II.

The exhibit will be on view for six months with a complete rotation of prints halfway through the run. SDMA’s exhibit will continue until June 5, 2011. A series of public programs will include a lecture demonstration by artisans from the Adachi Institute of Woodcut Printing in Tokyo, a four-day woodblock printmaking workshop and a performance by Malashock Dance Company inspired by certain works in the exhibit. For those programs, contact Alexander Jarman at (619) 696-1978.

General information: www. sdmart.org or (619) 232-7931.