Under the Golden Glow. Gold, Power and Imagination in Japanese Art (Bajo el resplandor dorado. Oro, poder e imaginación en el arte japonés)

The aim of this conference is to take advantage of the artefacts displayed in the exhibition to introduce the public to general themes of Japanese art from different periods, focusing on the folding screens, fusuma (sliding doors) and fans and their relationship with the circles of power throughout Japanese history. The speaker will take us on a historical journey through each of these three media, explaining what it is that makes each of them an attractive vehicle for expressing a specific type of message. He will also tell us about the emergence and evolution of gold leaf, or kinpaku, the material that gives the exhibition that accompanies this activity its title, and which reveals the mastery of the Japanese artists who use it in an exemplary balance of colour, light and composition.

Daniel Sastre de la Vega holds a PhD in History and Theory of Art from the Autonomous University of Madrid (2017) and a master’s degree in Japanese Art from Tokyo’s Sophia University (2008). He has carried out research at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, the University of Tokyo, Sophia University (Tokyo) and the Ritsumeikan University (Kyoto). He has curated two exhibitions of Japanese art at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, in 2014 and 2018. In 2021, he was a finalist in the ICAS (International Conference of Asian Studies) Award for the best book on Asian themes, which has been published in Spanish and Portuguese along with his monograph Art and Nation. The Discourse of Art History in Meiji Japan (Arte y Nación. El discurso de la Historia del Arte en el Japan Meiji). (2019, Edicions Bellaterra: Barcelona). He is currently a lecturer on the History of Japanese Arte and Culture in the Asia and Africa degree course, and in the master's degree in East Asian Studies at the Autonomous University of Madrid.

His research focuses on the pictorial circles of the city of Kyoto in the first half of the 20th century, the writing of Japanese art history in modern Japan, and the contemporary memory of Japanese heritage.