Oriental Paintings as Functional Pieces in the Modern Life

For many years, paintings were used to decorate and adorn the walls of homes, galleries and offices as an expression of one's education and culture into the arts. Not to be outdone, Oriental paintings, especially Japanese pictures, embellished many homes in South East Asia.

However, the cost of acquiring original masterpieces became too impractical for the average art appreciator, even art aficionados. Thus, the era of mass produced art became all the rage. Reproductions of Picasso, Botticelli, Matisse, Lempecka and Warhol emerged. Artworks about Japan also became fashionable and average homes in Asia had their own reproduction of the traditional bamboo and cherry blossom art of artists from Japan or the very simple Voltes V and Diamos cartoon stills.

Oriental Paintings - A Feeling of Zen

Another trend that occurred in the past several years is the use of oriental pictures on functional pieces in modern life. The more popular is the paper fan and umbrella, another is the bamboo window shade, and even t-shirts and other pieces of clothing have print reproductions of Mt. Fuji or a Zen Buddhist temple.

The development of fashion in the past decade was inspired greatly by Asian artists, more particularly Japan artists, as the leading source of creative use of materials and textures. Even dress material is hand-painted with subjects of bamboo, open lakes and young geishas in their kimonos.

Nowadays, think oriental pictures and you immediately draw a peaceful place in your mind. Enter a spa and you see nothing but Zen themes around you. What do these mean? It means that the tastes of the Orient are reaching out to you.