Japan: A History of Style

Fudō Myōō (Sanskrit: Acala-vidyaraja), the chief of the Five Wisdom Kings (Godai myōō), is the wrathful avatar of Dainichi Buddha and the tenacious protector of Buddhist law. His iconography, drawn from the Dainichi Sutra, describes his body as black or blue, with bulging eyes, protruding fangs that bite his lower lip, and hair that hangs down his left shoulder. He carries in his left hand a lasso to catch and bind demons (obstacles to awakening) and in his right hand a sword to decapitate them (cut through ignorance).



The present example, from the workshop of Kaikei, one of the leading sculptors of his day, adheres to this iconography. Traces of colored pigments and strips of cut gold (kirikane) are visible in the deity’s robes, and his eyes are inlaid with crystal, intensifying his ferocious expression.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

Albums of exemplary calligraphy specimens, referred to as tekagami, or “mirrors of the hand,” demonstrate the high esteem in which the art of brush writing has been held in Japan, as in East Asia more generally. Such albums, which bring together fragments cut from handscrolls or bound booklets, also served as models of different brush-writing styles for students of calligraphy. The practice of creating such compendia became popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with connoisseurs of calligraphy pasting labels attempting to identify the calligrapher alongside a fragment.



Here the examples by the noted poet Fujiwara no Shunzei (1114–1204) and his even more famous son, Teika (1162–1241)—the most famous literary commentator of early medieval times—reflect their distinctive brush-writing styles.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Sue ware represents a turning point in the history of Japanese ceramics, marking a break with earthenware production. Japanese craftsmen began to use the potter’s wheel during the seventh and eighth centuries, as revealed by the even walls of this vessel. Fired at a higher temperature than previously achieved—roughly 1000 to 1200° Celsius—Sue wares have bluish-gray bodies. These ceramics were fired in Korean-style kilns, single tunnel-like chambers half-buried in the hillsides.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

The sutra to which this section of text and images once belonged narrates the life of the historical Buddha, known in Japanese as Shaka and in Sanskrit as Shakyamuni. Here the Buddha has already achieved enlightenment, demonstrated by the halo (mandorla) framing his head. He is preaching a message to King Bimbisara (558–491 B.C.), who became emperor of the Magadha Empire, in northern India, and an ardent supporter of Buddhist teachings.



With its primitive evocation of threedimensionality, suggested through a succession of receding contour lines and alternating passages of light and dark color, this vignette from the life of Buddha is the earliest example of East Asian painting in The Met collection.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

This section of a handscroll illustrating Buddhist scripture details the lives, past and present, of the historical Buddha, who early in his life was known as Prince Siddhartha. Figures representing the Buddha’s father (the king) and his men occupy a landscape with a rolling hill and trees. The text beneath the illustration relates how the Buddha traveled to Mount Gaya and practiced asceticism for six years. The worried king dispatched ministers to report on his son’s activities and ordered that he be brought one thousand cartfuls of daily necessities and watched over at all times. The earliest examples of this work in Japan, which date to the eighth century, are thought to be copies of now-lost ancient Chinese originals.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

By the 1100s, many courtiers and court ladies of the palace were inscribing kana calligraphy with a firmer brush compared to previous generations. Traditionally, the inscription of these poems was attributed to the courtier Asukai Masatsune (1170–1221), but modern scholarship has securely identified it as by Norinaga, the brother of Masatsune’s grandfather, helping to establish a more solid framework of how kana writing styles evolved.



On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

The long strands of calligraphy were inscribed without lifting the brush from the paper. Such “unbroken-line” (renmentai) brushwork, considered de rigueur for ladies of the palace during the age of Genji, came to characterize much of the period’s poetic inscriptions.



The “cloud paper” (kumogami), moreover, recalls the type popular in the Heian court from the tenth century onward. Indigo-dyed pulp was used when fabricating the paper, resulting in abstract undulating patterns of blue or purple—especially striking across the wide expanse of a handscroll—that were favored as an attractive backdrop for presenting poems.



On view from August 28, 2021–December 6, 2021

This vessel was shaped on a wheel and its green glaze achieved when wood ash melted and fused onto the body during firing. It could have been a medicine jar, but more likely was intended as a cinerary urn, an inexpensive substitute for a gilt-bronze container for ashes. The high rim was designed to hold a straight-sided lid.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Elegant strands of kana calligraphy in varying ink tones impart a sense of subtle rhythmic movement on this page of decorated paper. Printed in mica with impressed floral patterns and stylized peacocks, the paper was then further embellished with printed silver designs of pine branches, various plants, and abstractly rendered birds in flight. The page was originally part of a set of personal poetry collections of thirty-six famous poets from ancient to Heian times. This version was referred to as Nishi-Honganji Edition of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals (Nishi-Honganji-bon Sanjūrokunin kashū). The detached sections of this set are called the Ishiyama Fragments (Ishiyama-gire).



On view from August 28, 2021–December 6, 2021

Connoisseurs in the past attributed this work to the hand of courtier-poet Fujiwara no Tameyori. In doing so, they seem to have made a speculative connection between the content of the calligraphic fragment, in this case poems from Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern (ca. 905), imaging that it was from an early transcription of this literary classic. This style of court calligraphy did not appear until two hundred years later. Each of the three anonymously composed poems is rendered in two columns.



On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

Nun Abutsu (Abutsu-ni), one of the most celebrated woman writers of the age, earned literary fame for her moving account of palace and temple culture in her Diary of the Waning Moon (Izayoi nikki). Before taking Buddhist vows, she served as a lady-in-waiting in the palace and belonged to a circle of talented women writers. While there is no way to verify that this crisp but elegant calligraphy is in her hand, the style is characteristic of kana calligraphy of the era and of the elite society in which she lived.



Kana calligraphy (used to inscribe Japanese phonetic characters) was referred to as onnade, or the “women’s hand,” since ladies of the court wrote letters, diaries, and prose in the vernacular, while men continued to write primarily in Chinese.



On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

The legendary founder of a sect of mountain-dwelling religious practitioners called Shugendō, En no Gyōja is said to have lived during the seventh century on Mount Katsuragi, near the ancient capital of Nara. He is believed to have conjured Zaō Gongen of Mount Kinpusen, the guardian deity of Shugendō.



In this portrait, En no Gyōja appears in his conventional hood, monk’s robe, straw mantle, and wood sandals. He is usually shown holding a vajra (thunderbolt sword) and a shakujō (jeweled staff with six rings); here, however, he bears a rosary and one of his two servant-demons has the shakujō. According to legend, En no Gyōja ordered these demons (one red and one green) to serve him. Had they refused, he had the power to bind them with a spell. The landscape suggests a high mountain with a stream and hovering clouds.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Four thirty-one-syllable Japanese court poems (waka), inscribed in an elegant, flowing kana (phonetic writing) script, allude to the sad story of the celestial lovers known as the Weaver Maid and the Herdboy (the stars Vega and Altair). This particular eleventh-century transcription of works from the Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern (Kokin wakashū, compiled 905), originally part of a bound booklet of pages dyed various colors, was long esteemed as an exemplary model of ancient court kana calligraphy.



On view from August 28, 2021–October 12, 2021

This work is among a couple dozen superlative examples of brush writing traditionally attributed to the renowned calligrapher Fujiwara no Yukinari, known as a master of brush writing styles of both kana and kanji (Chinese characters). The assertive but highly refined calligraphy of this compendium was so admired by connoisseurs that over the course of the past century about forty sections—usually just a page, but sometimes a double-page spread—were excised from the bound booklets and mounted separately in hanging-scroll format.



On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

The fluid but crisp and unerringly precise kana style of this writing, with its abrupt turns of the brush and contrasting widths, bespeaks a stylistic shift in early medieval calligraphy. It was so prized as a calligraphic model that pages or even parts of pages were extracted from surviving volumes and lovingly remounted as hanging scrolls or calligraphy albums. Among the three waka poems included is the famous verse by Ki no Tsurayuki that was also in the immensely popular anthology One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets (Hyakunin isshu):


On view from October 14, 2021–December 6, 2021

Zaō Gongen, the protector deity of the sacred Mount Kinpu in Nara (where this mirror was excavated), is considered the local Shinto manifestation of three Buddhist divinities as well as one of the most important deities of the Japanese religious mountain practice shugendō. Always depicted in a dynamic posture full of energy and vitality, the three-eyed Zaō here holds a vajra (thunderbolt) in his right hand and stands with his right foot raised.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Zaō Gongen is a rare example of a purely Japanese deity in the Buddhist pantheon. Many of the religious practices associated with Zaō took place in remote temples deep in the mountains. Through these rites, mountain ascetics (yamabushi), who were practitioners of Shugendō, attempted to appropriate for themselves the sheer physical power of the deities. This powerful icon in a demon-quelling aspect was made for the Kōshōji Temple in Kyoto.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

This later depiction of Zaō is carved almost entirely from a single block of cedar; only his limbs were formed separately and attached. The artist captured Zaō’s energetic movement through a careful description of his fluttering robe and scarves. The deity’s powerful expression, with bulging brow and gaping mouth, is enhanced by three inset crystal eyes with red tinting to make them appear bloodshot.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

The idea of the Thirty-six Poetic Immortals dates back to the early eleventh century. In the early seventeenth century, woodblock printing spurred the dissemination of classical literature and imagery. Although traditionally attributed to the renowned calligrapher and painter Hon’ami Kōetsu (1558–1637), the handwriting here is in a generic style reflecting calligraphy conventions of the day.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

Selection of poets for the “Fujifusa version” of the Thirty-six Immortal Poets is believed to have been edited by the courtier Fujiwara Fujifusa (born 1295). Eleven fragments from the handscroll, which includes biographical notes on the subjects as well as poems, are extant. The poet depicted in this section is a court lady, Koōgimi (or Kodai no Kimi, late 10th–early 11th century); women, in fact, were the first to adopt waka—verses of thirty-one syllables—as an important means of literary expression. Koōgimi was married to a direct descendant of Emperor Daigo (reigned 897–930), and served as lady-in-waiting to two successive emperors. Her kneeling figure is all but obscured by her voluminous, layered court garb, against which the graceful fall of her black hair creates a sinuous pattern. Her verse, taken from the Collection of Poems by Koōgimi (Koōgimi-shū), alludes to failed attempt of the Shinto deity Hitokotonushi no Kami to erect a stone bridge (iwabashi) between Mount Katsuragi in Nara and Kinpusen to the south. Thus the phrase “stone bridge” has come to suggest an interrupted love affair.



Iwabashi no

yoru no chigiri mo

taenu beshi

akuru wabishiki

Katsuragi no kami



Vows of love made that night,

like a stone bridge,

surely cannot be extended!

As morning dawns, how sad

the god of Katsuragi appears.



—trans. John T. Carpenter



On view from August 28, 2021–December 6, 2021

The poetry competition (uta-awase), a popular and challenging courtly pastime, became a frequent subject of illustrated handscrolls. During the Heian period (794–1185), selections of renowned “poetic immortals,” often thirty-six in number, were made by scholar-poets of the aristocracy. This imaginary portrait of the ninth-century courtier Ariwara no Narihira (825–880) was once part of a handscroll executed in the yamato-e (“Japanese-style painting”) mode of illustration, with details painted in thin, even lines. The tightness of the brushstrokes is characteristic of fourteenth-century works. To the left of the headnote (in Chinese) is one of Narihira’s most famous waka (31-syllable poems), here remarking on the emotional tug of seeing cherry blossoms bloom and scatter in the spring.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

Minamoto no Muneyuki (died ca. 939), a poet and courtier of the Heian period (794–1185), is counted among the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals, a list of celebrated poets devised during the eleventh century. Court artists created imaginary portraits of the venerated poets, accompanied by representative verses for each. In painted handscrolls, the poets were often paired off and depicted as though participating in an actual poetry competition. Muneyuki wears the stiff, black, wide-sleeved outer robe (kariginu) of a courtier, with patterned trousers. He also wears the standard black courtier’s cap (kanmuri), with its “tail” (ei) of black gauze hanging down from the back. His waka (thirty-one syllable verse) poem, inscribed in three vertical lines, is written almost entirely in kana syllabic characters, with the poet’s name and biographical note in kanji (Chinese characters) at far right.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

Thirty-six poets were selected in the late tenth century as the Poetic Immortals (Sanjūrokkasen), and soon thereafter imaginary portraits of them (kasen-e) were made. The present fragment once belonged to a long handscroll known as the Narikane version of the Thirty-six Poetic Immortals, so named because its calligraphy was attributed to Taira no Narikane (died ca. 1209). It is the only portion known to be in an American collection. The poem was inscribed in small, evenly spaced letters that seldom flow into one another. It was composed upon the celebration of the First Day of the Rat in Kii Province (modern Wakayama Prefecture). It reads:



Ne no hi shi ni

shimetsuru nobe no

hime komatsu

hikade ya chiyo no

kage o matamashi



Don’t uproot the pine sapling

in the field roped off

for the First Day of the Rat—

wait a thousand years

until it casts a long shadow!



—Trans. John T. Carpenter



On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

This fragment was once part of a handscroll depicting the Thirty-six Poetic Immortals (Sanjūrokkasen) known as the Tameshige version, as its calligraphy was once attributed to the influential poet and calligrapher Nijō Tameshige (1334–1385.



The figure of the poet depicted here, Kiyohara Motosuke, is simply rendered, in sharp contrast to the bold, assertive calligraphy that fills the space above. He turns his head toward his name, inscribed to the right in four large Chinese characters. The poem that follows reads:



Aki no no no

hagi no nishiki o

furusato ni

shika no ne nagara

utsushiteshigana



How I wish I could bring

back to the place I was born

the brocade of bush clover

covering these autumn fields,

as well as the baying of deer.



—Trans. John T. Carpenter



On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

Poetry contests, or uta awase, were a vital part of patrician life of the Late Heian period (ca. 900–1185). In a classic poetry match contestants were divided into two groups, the "left" and the "right." In the literary genre Jidai fudō uta awase (Competition of Poets of Different Periods), one hundred poets were selected from past and present and paired in an imaginary competition, each poet represented by three poems.



This fragment from a handscroll depicts the Buddhist monk-poets Jichin (1155–1225), on the left, and Henjō (816–890), on the right. Their six poems are inscribed above, in an unusual style that combines kana with man'yōgana, the first Japanese writing system, in which Chinese characters were used to represent Japanese sounds.



On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

All four poems are rendered mostly in kana (Japanese phonetic characters) in a highly cursive, but sharp and angular style. A handful of Chinese characters (kanji ) are intermixed to render simply constructed words such as hito 人 (person or lover), yama 山 (mountain), sora 空 (sky), miyako 都 (capital). These kanji are rendered in a way that allows them to meld harmoniously with her kana style: crisp, sharp-edged, angular, vertically elongated, and with strokes detached from each other.



Each poem is inscribed on its own vertical axis, reflecting the respective orientation of the vertical poem-card shape of the background. The overall effect of the calligraphy is one of restless energy, which resonates with the message of the poems on seasonal themes linked to the anguished longing for a loved one or for the past. The forms of the Japanese syllabary (kana) used are ancient forms (hentaigana), no longer used in the modern language, but appropriate for poems of the classical tradition.



Poems on each of the four seasons progress in reverse order, from winter on the right to spring on the left. The poet’s names, not given in the transcriptions, have been added here. The poems read:



Sabishisa ni

taetaru hito no

mata mo are na

iori narabemu

fuyu no yamazato



If only there were

someone to be with me

to bear this loneliness,

in huts standing side by side

in a wintry mountain village.

—Monk Saigyō (1118–1190)



Kiri no ha mo

fumiwakegataku

narinikeri

kanarazu hito o

matsu to nakeredo



It’s hard to make one’s way

through the deep layers

of fallen paulownia leaves

though it’s not as if

I’m waiting for anyone special.

—Princess Shikishi (died 1201)



Tamaboko no

michiyuki bito no

kotozute mo

taete hodo furu

samidare no sora



How many days have passed

since messages ceased to come

from my loved one,

who travels along the roads

under rainy summer skies.

—Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241)



Iso no kami

furuki miyako o

kitemireba

mukashi kazashishi

hana saki ni keri



When we come to see

the ancient capital,

flowers that so long ago

adorned women’s hair

burst into bloom again.

—Anonymous



Trans. John T. Carpenter



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Two types of poetry cards—shikishi, almost square, and tanzaku, tall and narrowly rectangular in shape—have been used to transcribe waka poems since ancient times. The unusual examples here are paired on gold-leaf-backed leaves of a large album. Most remarkably, the borders of the tanzaku have colorfully painted floral motifs meticulously cut out to create vibrant eye-catching “frames.” Eight of the pairs have the same waka inscribed—by different hands, in different styles—on both cards. The poems selected for this album categorizedwaka according to the distinctive styles advocated by the early medieval courtier-poetand literary arbiter Fujiwara no Teika (or Sadaie, 1162–1241).


On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

This figure, carved from a single piece of wood, represents a Shinto deity (kami) in the form of a Heian-period courtier. Around this time, divinity was conferred on the imperial court such that certain aristocrats, once deceased, were deified and venerated as kami. Some of them were responsible for the safety and stability of important clans. Despite the figure’s insect damage (common in Shinto statues from this period), its exposed wood grain—centered on the face—gives the work a dramatic effect.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

This Bugaku dance mask representing a strong-willed warrior was used in a military-style dance related to the legends of Chūai (reigned 192–200), the fourteenth emperor of Japan. For more than twelve hundred years, the dance primarily took place at the Japanese imperial court. Bugaku court dance incorporates Buddhist as well as Shinto traditions, and is typically accompanied by Gagaku music.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

The temple-shrine complex on Mount Kōya has served as the headquarters of the Shingon sect of Buddhism since it was established in the ninth century by Kūkai (774–835), who is credited with transmitting the teachings from China. This painting shows the four primary deities of Niutsuhime Shrine, a sacred Shinto site at the base of the mountain. They sit on platforms before trifold screens within a shrine whose entrance is guarded by a pair of lions. The site’s original deities, Niu and her male counterpart, the hunter deity Kariba, are shown at top. Below them are two female deities, Kehi and Itsukushima. At the bottom of the picture are two dogs, one black and one white, who, along with their master, Kariba, are said to have originally guided Kūkai to this remote location.



On view from March 8–August 8, 2021

This handscroll is inscribed and painted by a woman artist who styled herself Ryūjō, literally, the “Dragon Lady.” It is from a set of five scrolls comprising text excerpts and related illustrations for all fifty-four chapters of The Tale of Genji, the monumental classic of Japanese literature (early 11th century) authored by the court lady Murasaki Shikibu. Each excerpted passage of prose mixed with poems—usually describing a crucial turning point in the plot—anticipates the painted vignette that follows. The highly skilled and refined courtly calligraphy bespeaks the practiced hand of a highranking womanof the palace or a wealthy warlord’s retinue. In the convention of “scattered writing” (chirashi-gaki), traditionally a specialty of women calligraphers through the ages and into early modern times, the columns of script are arranged in staggered registers to create a dynamic visual effect.



夕顔

Chapter 4, “The Lady of the Evening Faces” (Yūgao)



Yūgao, one of Genji’s many mistresses, is residing in a humble abode in Kyoto’s fifth ward. While visiting his ailing old nurse in the neighborhood, Genji stops in his carriage outside her gate. In what appears to be a case of mistaken identity, Yūgao sends out to Genji’s servant a fan inscribed with a coquettish poem and a white flower that blooms in the evening (yūgao).



若紫

Chapter 5, “Little Purple Gromwell” (Wakamurasaki)



Suffering from an illness, grieving over the death of Yūgao, and tormented by his affair with his father’s consort Fujitsubo, the eighteen-year-old Genji visits a healer in the northern hills, where he glimpses a ten-year-old girl named Murasaki. He finds her adorable and so similar to Fujitsubo (her paternal aunt) that he takes her into his own home and later becomes infatuated with her.



末摘花

Chapter 6, “The Safflower” (Suetsumuhana)



Genji courts a princess but discovers that her appearance is less than ideal, especially her nose, which he thinks resembles the bulbous red tip of a safflower blossom (suetsumuhana). This scene usually shows Genji and the young Murasaki comparing drawings of the princess with the ruddy nose, but here the artist, in a departure from tradition, shows Genji gazing into a mirror after he dabs red makeup on his own nose, in imitation of the Safflower Princess.



紅葉賀

Chapter 7, “An Imperial Celebration of Autumn Foliage” (Momiji no ga)



In this scene, Genji and Tō-no-Chūjō perform an elegant court dance, called “Waves of the Blue Sea,” for the Retired Emperor, Kiritsubo Emperor, and the Crown Prince (future Emperor Suzaku), who are seated behind blinds. Genji’s beauty and talent is said to outshine that of Tō-no-Chūjō, his friend and rival.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

A crowned figure wearing a Chinese robe and holding three wish-fulfilling jewels stands on a dark, curling cloud, which in turn rests on the surface of a wave-roiled sea. The deity can be associated with Nagaraja, mythological snake or dragon kings from India’s Vedic tradition that were brought from China to Japan along with other gods incorporated into the Buddhist pantheon. He likely represents Suiten, the Buddhist version of Varuna, a Hindu god of water, a bringer of rain, and ruler of the Naga deities. In Japan, Suiten was also associated with water and was thus seen as a guardian deity for fishing, seafaring, and even the so-called “water trade,” or business of the pleasure quarter.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

This painting pictorializes a scene from The Tale of the Heike, the great early medieval tale of war, valor, and tragic love that commemorates the Genpei War of 1180–85, which pitted the two great courtier families—the Taira (Heike clan) and Minamoto (Genji clan)—against each other. Matabei captures one of the most pivotal and poignant episodes of the entire tale, showing one of the last heirs to the Taira family’s power, Lieutenant General (Chūjō) Koremori, bidding farewell to his wife. As an artist, Matabei established a reputation for adding psychological suggestiveness to his compositions, seen here in the central figures, where the poses and effective use of blank space imply that both realize they will hereafter be separated. In contrast, the attendants have animated facial expressions, manifesting the exaggerated features for which the artist became famous.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

This handscroll section brilliantly encapsulates the elegance of Momoyama court calligraphy, here inscribed on sumptuously decorated paper with chrysanthemums and pampas grasses in gold and silver. The “cloud-patterned paper” (kumogami), featuring blue- and purple-dyed undulating cloud motifs, evokes the aesthetic sensibilities of the ancient Heian court. The calligrapher, Konoe Sakihisa, a courtier-poet of high rank, was recognized as one of the most talented calligraphers of his day. Both texts refer to chrysanthemums and are included in the autumn section of Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing, the influential anthology compiled by courtier-poet Fujiwara no Kintō about 1014. The Chinese couplet by Bai Juyi (772–846) is written in kanji staggered in four columns; at left are two columns of elegant kana representing the first half of a waka by Fujiwara no Toshiyuki (died ca. 907).


On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

Dainichi Nyorai (Sanskrit: Mahavairocana Tathagata), or Supreme Buddha of the Cosmos from which the entire universe emanates, is the central object of devotion in Esoteric sects of Buddhism. Here, Dainichi appears in a form known as Ichiji Kinrin, or “One-Syllable Golden Wheel,” one of the Five Supreme Buddha Attendants. Dainichi’s hands form the chiken-in, or “wisdom fist” mudra, with the left index finger surrounded by the fingers of the right hand. This gesture has the power to restrain passions that hinder enlightenment and expresses the union of spiritual and material realms of being. The graceful proportions of the sculpture come from its having been carved and assembled in sections (yosegi-zukuri), a technique that began in the late Heian period.



On view from March 8, 2021–April 24, 2022

This pair of statues, which flank the Cosmic Buddha Dainichi Nyorai, are from a set of four. Originally Hindu demigods, the Guardian Kings of the Four Directions, or Shitennō, were absorbed into the Buddhist pantheon as protectors of Buddhist teachings, the temple, and the nation. In China, such statues were usually positioned near temple entrances, but in Japan they more often surrounded the central deity on the main altar. These ferocious figures nearly always wear armor, carry weapons or other attributes (now lost), and stand in dynamic poses rather than static postures of ease or meditation. Each carved from a single block of wood, their muscular forms retain the strength of early Heian-period style. Only the arms, now missing, were carved separately.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

The fourteenth century was a prosperous period for the kilns in Seto. Many of the small jars produced there show a strong influence from Chinese ceramics. Carved, stamped, and combed patterns were used to decorate the surface of these Ko-Seto (Old Seto) jars. Iron glaze began to be used in this period, but its application was still uneven and transparent.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

This pair of statues, which flank the Cosmic Buddha Dainichi Nyorai, are from a set of four. Originally Hindu demigods, the Guardian Kings of the Four Directions, or Shitennō, were absorbed into the Buddhist pantheon as protectors of Buddhist teachings, the temple, and the nation. In China, such statues were usually positioned near temple entrances, but in Japan they more often surrounded the central deity on the main altar. These ferocious figures nearly always wear armor, carry weapons or other attributes (now lost), and stand in dynamic poses rather than static postures of ease or meditation. Each carved from a single block of wood, their muscular forms retain the strength of early Heian-period style. Only the arms, now missing, were carved separately.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Statues of the Buddhist protective deity Fudō Myōō, the “immovable wisdom king,” are a familiar sight at temples in Japan. In contrast to meticulously carved works by professionals, this type of roughly hewn sculpture is the creation of an amateur monk-sculptor. Mokujiki was motivated by religious enthusiasm to make thousands of sculptures of Buddhist deities and popular gods of good fortune.



Mokujiki’s sculptures were rediscovered in the early twentieth century by art critic Yanagi Sōetsu (1889–1961), an advocate of the virtues of mingei, literally, “people’s art.” Yanagi admired the direct, unaffected power of Mokujiki’s sculpture asrepresenting the ideal of an indigenous, popular Japanese art. While his technique is referred to as natabori—“hatchet-carved”—Mokujiki actually used round-headed chisels.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

Statues of the Buddhist protective deity Fudō Myōō, the “immovable wisdom king,” are a familiar sight at temples in Japan, especially those of the Shingon (Esoteric) and Zen sects. In contrast to meticulously carved works by professionals, this type of roughly hewn sculpture is the creation of an amateur monk-sculptor who worked in rural areas.



Mokujiki was motivated by religious enthusiasm to make thousands of sculptures of Buddhist deities and popular gods of good fortune. Mokujiki’s sculptures were rediscovered in the early twentieth century by art critic Yanagi Sōetsu (1889–1961), who was an advocate of the virtues of mingei, literally, “people’s art.” Yanagi admired the direct, unaffected power of Mokujiki’s sculpture as representing the ideal of an indigenous, popular Japanese art. While the technique used to create this sculpture is referred to as natabori, literally “hatchet-carved,” Mokujiki used round-headed chisels.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

Amida Nyorai (Sanskrit: Amitabha Tathagata), the Buddha of Limitless Light, sits upon a lotus pedestal with his hands forming the mudra of meditation. Amida presides over his own paradise, the Western Pure Land, to which he welcomes any being who calls upon his name. His benevolent gaze, directed toward the viewer below, is symbolic of this boundless compassion. The Pure Land sects of Buddhism, with their emphasis on salvation through faith, stirred the imagination of both courtiers and commoners alike, and temples dedicated to Amida were constructed throughout Japan. Originally installed at a temple in the vicinity of Mount Kōya, this sculpture and the Dainichi Nyorai on the central altar were both acquired by the Museum through negotiations with Yamanaka & Co., the pioneering dealers in Japanese art.



On view from March 8, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view March 8, 2021–April 24, 2022

Kannon is a compassionate bodhisattva and one of the most popular and most frequently depicted deities in Japanese Buddhism. Here he wears flowing robes and is draped with sashes. Originally, its surface would have been decorated with layers of lacquer, pigments, and mostly likely gold leaf, though today its cypress wood core is completely revealed. The sculpture represents a technical and stylistic transition. Its ample proportions harken back to sculpture of the 900s, while the artist’s approach to the figure’s posture and drapery suggests a date to the next century.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

Eleven-headed Kannon (Sanskrit: Avalokiteshvara) is an important bodhisattva in the esoteric schools of Buddhism. Atop the deity’s own head are eleven additional heads. Ten of these take the form of bodhisattvas and represent the ten stages toward enlightenment. The topmost head is that of Amida (Sanskrit: Amitabha), the Buddha from whom Kannon emanates. The fluid, deeply carved drapery follows a thirteenth-century sculptural style developed in Nara by the Kei school of Buddhist sculptors. However, the more decorative treatment 
of the robe and the heavy, solemn face suggest a fourteenth-century date for this imposing figure. It was originally installed at Kuhonji, a small Shingon school temple located northwest of Kyoto.



On view from March 8, 2021–April 24, 2022

This devotional image would have been hung in a temple during recitations of the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. At center, Shaka sits atop a lotus pedestal, flanked by attendant bodhisattvas, Fugen and Monju. Their radiant bodies are meticulously described using a combination of gold paint and strips of cut gold foil, a technique called kirikane. They are surrounded by a diverse group of benevolent deities charged with protecting the Sutra itself and all those who recite it.

The lengthy Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra was translated from Sanskrit into Chinese by the prolific translator Xuanzang (602–664), who appears at bottom right carrying a scroll and brush, and wearing a portable chest containing scriptures. The fierce red deity opposite him is the Great General of the Desert (Jinja Daishō), who is said to have protected Xuanzang during his travels.



On view from March 8–August 8, 2021

The enlightened historical Buddha Shaka (Sanskrit: Shakyamuni) is enthroned and flanked by his ten chief disciples and his bodhisattva attendants—Fugen (Samantabhadra), on a white elephant, and Monju (Manjushri), atop a lion. The attendants serve as the Buddha’s active agents in this world: Fugen represents Buddhist practice, while Monju stands for its wisdom, particularly in the form of meditation and teaching. The pyramid of figures, with the transcendent Shaka at the apex and axis, projects the enduring nature of the faith. The subtle contrast between the broad-shouldered stasis of the Buddha and the animation of the bodhisattvas and their mounts is a visual interpretation of the figures’ theological significance.



This richly painted icon, rendered in fine pigments and gold on silk, demonstrates how Japanese Buddhist painting of the medieval era was directly influenced by Chinese Buddhist painting of the Song dynasty (960–1279).



On view from August 28, 2021–December 6, 2021

At the center of this mandala, which was used in rites to prevent natural calamities, is an orb framing Monju Bosatsu (Sanskrit: Bodhisattva Manjushri) surrounded by eight tiny Sanskrit seed syllables and eight attendants, each on the lion mount associated with the bodhisattva. Seed syllables are derived from mantras (sacred Buddhist formulas) or, as in this case, the first syllable of a particular deity’s Sanskrit name. Representing wisdom, Monju holds his identifying attributes: the sword and sutra. His hair, bundled in eight knots, symbolizes his childlike purity and detachment. The Four Guardians of the Buddhist Law protect the corners of the inner square, and the outer band is filled with his retinue of eight bodhisattvas and devas, superhuman beings in Buddhist cosmology.



On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

Memyō is the Japanese reading of the name of Ashvaghosha (ca. A.D. 80–150), an Indian scholar of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy credited as the author of several important Buddhist texts. The monk’s name literally means “the sound [ghosha] of a horse [ashva].” Most Esoteric Buddhist depictions, including the one nearby, show him riding a white horse and with six arms bearing items associated with silk production. Here, however, he holds a scale and a red disk.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Memyō, an Esoteric Buddhist deity associated with silk production, sits atop a lotus pedestal on a white horse that hovers over clouds. The bodhisattva is not usually shown with hands in a gesture of worship and or legs in full lotus position, making this a somewhat rare representation. The tight composition of red-shaded figures, the flying clouds, and the strong, vivid brushwork suggest this was a preliminary Buddhist painting made by a professional artist.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

This painting portrays a variant form of the bodhisattva Monju known as Monju with Five Topknots (Gokei Monju). He is imagined as a boy sitting cross-legged on a lotus pedestal atop a lion. He carries a sword, used to cut through ignorance, and a lotus, above which hovers a scroll representing the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. The five topknots symbolize five buddhas who are said to embody five types of cognition.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

This miniature sculpture represents a distinctive form of the bodhisattva Monju, who personifies Buddhist wisdom. This iteration of the deity shows him with his hair coiffed into eight knots, corresponding to the number of syllables in a corresponding incantation. It probably once formed part of a decorative program for the mandorla (aureole) of a much larger sculpture.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

This scroll depicts the Buddha on a bank of swirling clouds at upper center, preaching to a varied group of figures at Vulture Peak. He is flanked by attendant bodhisattvas: Fugen, at right riding a white elephant, and Monju, at left on a blue lion. Below this heavenly triad are sixteen arhats (rakan), enlightened ascetic followers of the Buddha, who engage in a diversity of activities in a landscape of jagged rocks, caverns, and rushing waterfalls. Joining them are two historical figures, both crucial to the development of Japanese Buddhism: at left in a red robe is Shōtoku Taishi (574–622), an imperial prince and early patron of Buddhism, and at right the monk Kūkai (774–835), founder of the Shingon sect of Esoteric Buddhism.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

A close look at this picture reveals an extraordinary technical feat: every single element—figures, architecture, tree, even shading—is delineated in tiny Chinese characters that spell out a section of the Lotus Sutra. At once an artistic tour de force and a demonstration of remarkable religious piety, it was created by Katō Nobukiyo, a minor government official who took Buddhist vows in his early fifties. In 1788 he began creating a set of fifty-one painted scrolls. On all but one he painted ten rakan (enlightened followers of the Buddha); an image of the Buddha with attendant bodhisattvas appears on the fifty-first. In 1792 he dedicated the complete set (including this work) to Ryūkōji, temple in Edo (present-day Tokyo).



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

This imagined portrait shows the monk Saichō (767–822), also known by his posthumous title Dengyō Daishi, sitting cross-legged on a Chinese-style carved lacquer chair in front of a painted screen. Saichō was the first Japanese patriarch of Tendai Buddhism, whose teachings are based on those of the Chinese Tientai sect. The notably Chinese-inflected portrayal here is a reminder that Saichō traveled to China in 804 and is said to have brought back manuals on Esoteric Buddhism, drawings of portraits of Tientai masters, and ritual accoutrements. Apocryphal lore also suggests that Saichō’s genealogy could be traced back to Chinese emperors.


On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

Prince Shōtoku (574–622), nephew of Empress Suiko (554–628), served as her regent and adviser on matters of civil administration. Reputed to be a great Buddhist scholar and influential statesman, he sent an official diplomatic delegation to China and, in 592, compiled the Seventeen Article Constitution, Japan’s earliest code of conduct for the ruling class.



Sources indicate that the imperial family initiated the veneration of Shōtoku. At first deified as a Shinto kami, by the medieval period the prince came to be seen as a manifestation of a Buddhist deity. Here, he is portrayed as a paragon of filial piety, holding a handled censer and praying for the recovery of his father, Emperor Yōmei, from illness. Statues and paintings of the prince were produced in great numbers from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, when Shōtoku worship was at its peak.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

The Twelve Divine Generals serve and protect Yakushi Nyorai, the Medicine Buddha, who heals all diseases, including the disease of ignorance. They are also responsible for protecting the faithful and vanquishing the enemies of Buddhism. The generals are usually depicted with ferocious countenances, wearing armor and standing in fighting poses, as in these examples. In Heian Japan, they became associated with the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. The generals here have been tentatively identified as, from right to left:



(2) Basara, Ox (丑)

(4) Anchira, Rabbit (卯)

(6) Sanchira, Snake (巳)

(7) Indara, Horse (午)

(11) Shotora, Dog (戌)

(12) Bikara, Boar (亥)



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

This accordion-style book is one volume of the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, a foundational Mahayana Buddhist scripture. The six-hundred-volume version that circulated in East Asia was translated into Chinese by the scholar-monk Xuanzang (602–664). The image that opens this sutra shows the Buddha and his attendant bodhisattvas at center surrounded by a host of disparate figures.



Xuanzang himself (carrying a large backpack full of texts) and his fearsome protector Jinja Daishō stand on either side of the central triad. They are surrounded by a collection of demigods charged with protecting this scripture and believers. This same subject can be seen in painted form in a scroll displayed in the adjacent gallery.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

This handscroll is one of a set of three narrating the miraculous origins of the shrines at Kumano, one of Japan’s most sacred locales. A fantastical account of the Indian origins and ultimate enshrinement of Kumano’s three deities, the story is told through a mix of text and image presented in a linear format, conveying progression through time and space. The first two scrolls depict the story of an unnamed consort—one among a thousand—of an Indian maharaja. She gives birth to the ruler’s only son but is immediately beheaded at the hands of the other 999 consorts, who are bitterly jealous. The maharaja, his consort, and the prince are eventually enshrined as the deities of Kumano, whose sacred sites are introduced in the final scroll.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

This small gilt-bronze object may have served as a ritual vessel called a kundika in Sanskrit, which held water used during Buddhist ceremonies and is one of the eighteen implements Buddhist monks and nuns need in order to perform their duties. Most East Asian kundika take the shape of long-necked bottles, although some examples have short, bulbous bodies like this one. However, its shape and diminutive size are also reminiscent of a water dropper.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

This drawing belongs to a compendium of Buddhist deities from the Diamond World and Womb World Mandalas that was discovered in Japan in the late 1920s, disassembled, and dispersed. Together, the two mandalas are foundational to Esoteric Buddhist ritual. This page shows the bodhisattva Daishōjin, a deity of unswerving faith and one of the Sixteen Honored Ones of the Auspicious Age, a group of guardians in the Diamond World Mandala.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Ōtsu-e, or “pictures from Ōtsu Village," were folk paintings popular with travelers the busy trade and pilgrimage routes passing by Lake Biwa, to the northeast of Kyoto. The fierce blue-bodied deity Shōmen Kongōyasha served as the central icon for the popular rite of kōshin machi, an all-night religious vigil intended to protect believers from evil. Before him are four fierce yasha (Sanskrit: yaksha), wrathful deities who serve as guardians of Buddhism.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

The bodhisattva at the center of this mandala personifies the “perfection of wisdom,” a supreme understanding of the nature of things that is fundamental to Mahayana Buddhist teachings. The mandala would have been used during sutra recitations and other rituals. The bodhisattva, holding a scripture, is attended by Bonten and Taishakuten (Sanskrit: Brahma and Indra), major Hindu deities adopted into the Buddhist pantheon as protectors of the faith.



The mandala imagines a tiered space with a series of gates leading from the outside in through increasingly sacred registers. A monk near a gate at the bottom is a reminder of the material world. At the periphery are dragons, a phoenix, and apsaras playing music. Dozens of demigods in the gray register serve as protectors of the Sixteen Benevolent Deities in the green area, and the holiest sector features the central triad on a blue platform.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

This painting captures the activities of a spring day at Chōmeiji Temple, situated on a hill overlooking Lake Biwa, just east of Kyoto. A wealth of genre detail relates the activities of temple monks and of the visitors of all walks of life who visited the temple to make offerings to the central object of worship—an eleven-headed Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion.



Pilgrimage mandalas (sankei mandara) relate the miraculous stories and seasonal activities of famous temples or shrines. Itinerant storytellers used them in a form of storytelling known as “picture-narration” (etoki). This particular example was no doubt used by temple-affiliated storytellers to help raise funds for the rebuilding of the Chōmeiji Temple complex after it was razed by fire in 1516.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

This single column of cursive script by Zekkai Chūshin quotes a longer poem by the Tang-dynasty poet Wei Yingwu (737–790) that captures the experience of deep solitude in the mountains. Zekkai first studied Zen as a teenager at Tenryūji, a major monastery in western Kyoto that Musō Soseki (whose work hangs nearby) had established just a few years earlier; he then joined Musō at nearby Saihōji. In his thirties he journeyed to China, where he studied Zen at storied monasteries in Hangzhou such as Wanshousi and Lingyinsi. He returned to Japan a decade later and briefly practiced in seclusion before accepting abbotships at several major monasteries in Kyoto. Recognized as one of Musō’s most influential disciples, he is also celebrated for his achievements in poetry.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

The eight Chinese characters brushed in a striking cursive script here convey a fundamental Zen message that awakening can be achieved by transcending all aspects of the material, transitory world. They were written by Musō Soseki, one of the most influential monks in the early history of Japanese Zen. Unlike many of his predecessors, Musō did not travel to China, but he studied under the émigré monk Yishan Yining (1247–1317) and a number of leading Japanese monks who themselves had been to the mainland or were disciples of Chinese masters. He spent his early career in Kamakura before accepting an invitation in 1333 from the emperor to move to Kyoto, where he spent the rest of his life. His many prominent disciples included Zekkai Chūshin, whose calligraphy is on view nearby.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

This bird’s-eye view of the entrance to Gion Shrine, known today at Yasaka Shrine, offers a lively scene of seventeenth-century Kyoto. Entering and leaving through the red torii gate are festively clad citizens of various classes. In the street market nearby, vendors enjoy a bustling trade selling fish, rice cakes, and tobacco. Such activities are among the pleasures still associated with visits to the shrine, which is famous for its buildings that assimilate Buddhist temple architecture. The shrine is also recognized for its prominence during the Gion Matsuri, Kyoto’s most important festival. A six-panel screen (Suntory Museum, Tokyo) and two-panel screen (Museum for East Asian Art, Cologne) depicting the festival and its setting matches The Met screen in figure style, composition, and treatment of landscape and cloud patterns, indicating that this painting was once part of a llarger painted sliding-door composition.

Shaka renounced the world and went into the mountains to become an ascetic at the age of twenty-nine. Unable to reach enlightenment after six years of rigorous austerities, he departed in disillusionment. He resolved to continue his search not by challenging his physical endurance but through disciplined meditation—a moment that developed importance only among Zen Buddhists.



This picture is modeled after a work by a little-known thirteenth-century Chinese painter of religious figures, Yan Hui. Introduced to Japan by the late fourteenth century, his art proved influential among Japanese painter-monks in Buddhist monasteries. Numerous paintings in Japan, including this one, have been attributed to Yan Hui himself—more as a form of stylistic categorization than as an indication of actual authorship.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

In medieval Zen monasteries, it was not uncommon to find a religious artwork flanked by a pair of hanging scrolls depicting seemingly secular subjects such as landscapes or birds and flowers. Painters used a variety of compositional strategies to ensure that these diptychs would complement a central icon of a buddha, bodhisattva, or important Zen patriarch. In this pair of landscapes, for example, Keison positioned the profusion of mountains, trees, and architectural motifs at the outside edges of each picture so that they could frame a central figure.



Although Keison was a professional artist, active in eastern Japan in the vicinity of Kamakura, he modeled most of his works after those of a celebrated monk-painter, Kenkō Shōkei (active ca. 1478–ca. 1523). A landscape by Shōkei isOn view in this gallery.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

A flock of quails and pair of sparrows gather around stalks of millet, their heads heavy with ripe seed on an autumn day. The theme of quails and autumn grasses was widely depicted in China during the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279), most often by painters in attendance at the imperial court. Many works on the theme were brought to Japan and entered the collections of Buddhist temples, while a select few entered prestigious private collections such as that of the Ashikaga family, who ruled Japan as military dictators during the Muromachi period. These works served as important models for later Japanese artists. The present example reflects the unidentified Japanese painter’s familiarity with these earlier Chinese works.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

A fluffy, black-and-white musk cat does his best to ignore the agitated titmouse squawking on a willow branch above him. Although not native to Japan, musk cats (jakōneko), or civets, served as an auspicious motif associated with longevity. They were a favorite painting subject of artists affiliated with the Kano school, on whose models this work was likely based.



A large square seal at the lower right identifies the painter as Uto Gyoshi, an obscure figure whose name was long conflated with two other painters, Maejima Sōyū and Kano Gyokuraku, both of whom are loosely associated with a regional branch studio of the Kano school located in the eastern castle town of Odawara.



On view from August 28, 2021–December 6, 2021

In Zen monasteries, sacred icons were sometimes displayed flanked by complementary, seemingly secular subjects such as birds and flowers or landscapes. Triptychs of scrolls combined in this way might marry Chinese and Japanese paintings or works created at different times or in disparate media. In this configuration, the central icon imagines the bodhisattva White-robed Kannon in his paradise being visited by a young pilgrim called Zenzai Dōji. It is accompanied by a later diptych created by a professional artist affiliated with the early Kano school.



On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

Japanese Zen monks treasured pictures of gibbons painted by the Chinese monk-painter Muqi (active ca. 1250–80), which Muqi’s colleagues first carried to Japan in the late thirteenth century. By the late fifteenth century, images of the animals in the manner of Muqi had become a favored subject for large-scale painting programs.



In this pair of screens, showing a uniquely Japanese interpretation of Muqi’s style, a chain of gibbons tries to grasp the reflection of the moon in the water below—a futile effort that in Zen signifies the delusions of the unawakened mind. Sesson, a learned and prolific Zen monk-artist, studied a wide array of earlier Chinese ink styles and played a major role in the development of a distinctive Japanese form of Zen-inspired ink painting.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

A myriad of mynah birds set against the gold and blue of a shoreline is frozen in a moment in time. This is one of few surviving examples of the theme of a flock of mynahs depicted in the screen format. The artist has created an engaging sense of pattern, while using detailed brushwork to imbue each bird with animated expression.



Though not native to Japan, within East Asian literary tradition mynah birds serve as emblems of honesty, independent thinking, and even resistance to unjust authority. Whether this work can be interpreted as political protest is impossible to know, but the unusual iconography, focusing on mynah birds to the exclusion of any other creature or even landscape elements, lends itself to such an interpretation. It also dates to the era when Japanese artists were reformulating continental modes of ink painting to create their own distinct styles.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

Hawks tethered to their perches, awaiting release by their masters, symbolize military preparedness and valor. Their fearsome beauty and predatory features—sharp beaks, keen eyes, long curving talons—made them metaphors of martial training and the warrior spirit. The artist Soga Chokuan, renowned for his hawk paintings, received many commissions from leading samurai for either individual paintings or sets of tethered hawk images painted individually and pasted onto folding screens.



This set is inscribed by Ittō Jōteki, one of the foremost Zen figures of his time. He eventually served as the 152nd abbot of Daitokuji in Kyoto, the most influential Zen temple in medieval Japan.



On view from March 8, 2021–April 24, 2022, rotates October 12-13, 2021

A Chinese gentleman lounges against the parapet of a remote lakeside pavilion, his gaze captured by a waterfall plunging from precipitous peaks far above. The poetic inscription brushed by Tōgen Zuisen, a prominent Zen monk, ties the painted image to an ancient Chinese hermit who famously turned down a position at court in favor of spending his days fishing in isolation. Tōgen was an acquaintance of the artist, Kenkō Shōkei, a fellow Zen monk who journeyed from Kamakura to Kyoto in 1478 to study Chinese painting for three years. During that time he created this landscape, his earliest known datable work, in the style of the Chinese painter Xia Gui (active ca. 1195–1230), whose pictures he had probably only just encountered for the first time in Kyoto.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

This small vase was originally made for use in a Buddhist temple. Flower vessels, along with candlestands and incense burners, are essential components of Buddhist ritual offerings. Here, centuries of use have resulted in the loss of most of the original gilding, revealing the softly shimmering bronze body.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

A keen-eyed hawk perches on a branch of a pine tree, peering up at the twisting branches overhead. Images of birds of prey like the hawk and the eagle, representing strength and endurance, along with symbols of longevity such as the evergreen pine, were popular among members of the military class and were often commissioned from members of the newly influential Kano school. Yukinobu and other Kano artists worked in a style that transformed the Chinese-influenced and Zen-inspired ink painting that had flourished during the preceding two centuries into a mode that appealed to warlord patrons and Buddhist clergy alike.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

With a petal-shaped rim and an openwork base, this tray represents the high esteem in which medieval Japan held imported Chinese works of art (karamono). Such precious objects from the Song and Yuan periods (960–1368) came to Japan in the Kamakura (1185–1392) and Muromachi periods with the introduction of new schools and teachings of Buddhism, especially Zen. Negoro ware trays like this one, inspired by Chinese examples, were made by Japanese craftsmen beginning about the mid-thirteenth century. Those with a high foot were typically used with tenmoku tea bowls to serve tea.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

A bird identifiable as a brown-eared bulbul, known in Japanese as hiyodori, perches on a gnarled branch of plum that has just burst into bloom with the arrival of spring. Kano Shōei and other artists of the early Kano school were admired for their highly polished bird-and-flower paintings, executed both in monochrome and in color, in a style deeply informed by imported Chinese pictures and earlier Japanese Zen painting.



On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

Negoro lacquer implements and utensils were typically used by those residing in Buddhist temples and monasteries or by Shinto shrines and the upper echelons of society. Their strong wooden structure was designed to withstand many years of use, and the vivid contrast of the black gradually appearing from beneath the outermost layer of red lacquer made them very appealing.



On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

This painting of a warrior is executed at a size usually reserved for portraits of emperors and shoguns. Although the family crest of wild orange is associated with the Shibata family of the late sixteenth century, the original identifying inscription has not survived, so the sitter’s precise identity remains unknown.



The unnamed samurai, clearly an important member of a warrior clan, grasps the end of his long beard—a feature banned in the seventeenth century as an expression of antiestablishment sentiment and unwelcome individualism. His eyes seem to twinkle with mischievous pleasure. Such lively, informal representation was the norm in secular depictions of deceased people, while more formality was standard in portraits of the living. A picture like this would often be dedicated to the Buddhist temple where the sitter was buried.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

The right-hand scroll of this pair depicts a hawk perched on a rock by a body of water, one leg flexed. A faint reference to a cliff face, executed in ink wash, appears in the background at right. The left-hand scroll features a hawk on an oak branch. The bird’s head is turned as though gazing at something beyond the picture frame. On both animals, the texture of the feathers is effectively conveyed through layered brushwork in various tones by Soga Nichokuan. Like his father, Soga Chokuan—whose earlier work is displayed nearby— Nichokuan specialized in avian subjects, particularly birds of prey.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

Originally, the lid of this mirror box was most likely a cover for a three-legged, portable food container (hokai) used by a daimyo (feudal lord) during a procession. The finely executed lid with gold maki-e (“sprinkled picture”) decoration is embellished with a family crest (a whorl of eight hawk feathers) surrounded by an elegant peony scroll pattern. The crest belonged to a branch of the Inoue family, lords of Mikawa Province (present-day Aichi Prefecture) and close allies of the Tokugawa shoguns. The lid was later made into a box to hold a large Kamakuraperiod mirror.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

On the right panel of this screen an elderly man sits in the shade of a grove of trees, a walking stick in one hand. His bald head, scrawny limbs, and bare feet are delineated with smooth brush lines in light ink, while dark spots mark his eyes and the corners of his downturned mouth. The painting was cut down from a larger work, which may have held clues to the identity of the seated figure. The companion piece, on the left panel, depicts a hawk perched on the branch of an oak tree. Soga Nichokuan, well known as a painter of hawks, most likely worked in the vicinity of the port city of Sakai, south of Osaka.



On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

An influential monk and prolific painter, Hakuin Ekaku made striking and sometimes humorous pictures that played an important role in his teaching. Dozens of half-length portraits of Bodhidharma (Japanese: Daruma), the Indian monk credited with transmitting Zen Buddhist teachings to China in the sixth century, can be dated to the last few decades of the artist’s life. He brushed a variety of different messages on these pictures, perhaps the most common being four Chinese characters conveying a clear lesson: “Look inside yourself to become a buddha.” The inscription on this work, however, is more enigmatic and seemingly incomplete: “No matter how one looks at it . . . ” In his teaching, Hakuin focused on the practice of koan, or paradoxical dialogues that when contemplated may lead to spontaneous awakening.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Sôhei studied under Tanomura Chikuden (1779–1835), a leading literati painter and native of Sôhei’s hometown on the southern island of Kyûshû . In this painting, completed only about eight years prior to his premature death, Sôhei depicted the vitality of young, growing bamboo, one of his favorite subjects. Sôhei’s painting technique contained within it a subtle contrast: each leaf and the trunk of the plant are meticulously outlined with smooth, thin brushstrokes against the delicate ink wash that defines the rock and the groundline.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from August 28, 2021-April 24th, 2022.

Within a landscape of towering pines, distant peaks, and roaring waterfalls are four scenes of human activity, each alluding to one of the four pursuits deemed appropriate for Chinese gentlemen: music, the board game Go, calligraphy, and painting. Motonobu, second-generation head of the Kano School of painting, laid the groundwork for the school’s centuries of dominance over mainstream Japanese painting. One of his many achievements was the adaptation of small-scale paintings (like fans and albums) associated with specific Chinese masters to large-scale painting formats such as folding screens and panels. Here, Motonobu employs brush techniques associated with the Southern Song Chinese court painter Xia Gui (active ca. 1195–1225).



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Two groups of young children delight in the possibilities for adventure offered by a summer river and a winter snowfall. The boys of summer try their skill at ferrying one another about in a small boat, while the winter squad braves uneven footing to shepherd an ever-larger snowball across a sparkling white field. Inspired by a Chinese painting tradition of depicting imperial children at play in palace gardens, this pair of screens subverts and updates the genre with its sparse, graphic landscapes. The painter Ōshin was the third head of the Maruyama school, founded by Maruyama Ōkyō (1790–1838).



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

In this diptych (with 14.76.53), some of the revered Eight Daoist Immortals of ancient China look skyward to watch the god of longevity, Shaolaoren (known in Japanese as Jurōjin), descend from above on a crane. Most of the immortals are easily identifiable. On the left scroll are Lu Dongbin, carrying a sword on his back; He Xiangu, the sole female, holding a magic mushroom; and Zhang Guolao, who turns his back and releases a miniature donkey from a bag. On the right scroll are Lan Caihe with clappers and Li Tieguai, who creates a miniature image of himself by blowing into the air. The basket of flowers is an attribute of Han Xiangzi, who had the power to make flowers grow and bloom instantly.



The exaggerated foreignness of some of the faces, verging on the grotesque, and the nervous, wavering outlines of the robes highlighted in white suggest that the unidentified painter, probably an artist of the Kano school, may have been copying from a Chinese work.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

In this diptych (with 14.76.52), some of the revered Eight Daoist Immortals of ancient China look skyward to watch the god of longevity, Shaolaoren (known in Japanese as Jurōjin), descend from above on a crane. Most of the immortals are easily identifiable. On the left scroll are Lu Dongbin, carrying a sword on his back; He Xiangu, the sole female, holding a magic mushroom; and Zhang Guolao, who turns his back and releases a miniature donkey from a bag. On the right scroll are Lan Caihe with clappers and Li Tieguai, who creates a miniature image of himself by blowing into the air. The basket of flowers is an attribute of Han Xiangzi, who had the power to make flowers grow and bloom instantly.



The exaggerated foreignness of some of the faces, verging on the grotesque, and the nervous, wavering outlines of the robes highlighted in white suggest that the unidentified painter, probably an artist of the Kano school, may have been copying from a Chinese work.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

One of the most skillful and stylistically diverse ink painters of the late Edo period, Nagasawa Rosetsu has conjured up a moody, atmospheric scene of a mountain landscape illuminated by a moon, rendered in reserve. Wisps of cloud moving across the sky evoke a slightly eerie feeling and call to mind the representation of imaginary dragons of East Asian lore by Rosetsu and others. The bold silhouettes of pine trees contrast with gray washes created using a tsuketatefude 付立筆, a wide brush with long, flexible bristles, to create the contours of the mountainside without outlines. The painting would have been executed in multiple stages, allowing each layer of ink wash to completely dry before the next was applied. The upper expanse of the painting is entirely blank, except for the artist’s signature—cursorily inscribed with a moist brush—and the red accent of his double seal. The exaggeratedly elongated manner of writing Ro 蘆 of his name, as if it comprised two separate characters 艹 and 庵, is a frequently encountered idiosyncrasy of his late-career signature style.



Images of moonlit landscapes were a favorite subject of the artist’s oeuvre from the earliest stages of his career, as attested by the paintings attached to a pair of screens in The Met’s collection (1975.268.72, .73), right up until the end of his career, as demonstrated here. During the last five or so years of his life, beginning when he was travelling to Hiroshima and Itsukushima (site of a famous Shinto shrine) in 1794, he created several permutations of the theme of a full moon with clouds. The most famous example is preserved by the Egawa Museum of Art in Hyōgo prefecture, and two variations on the theme have in recent years entered the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art (acc. nos. 2015.79.164; 2013.31.35). In the former, a pine tree in grey wash is silhouetted directly again the moon; in the Minneapolis examples abstract cloud formations resemble a dragon ascending to the heavens or hover over obscured mountain cliffs.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

Liezi (Japanese: Resshi) was a legendary Daoist sage who rejected all worldly ties and flew away with the wind. Here, he disappears from the eyes of onlookers into the darkened sky. Fan paintings were a common means by which Kano-school painters shared their knowledge of Chinese styles of the Song and Yuan dynasties. A faint seal links this to Kano Yukinobu, younger brother of the school’s second-generation leader, Motonobu (1477–1559).



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

This painting captures the final moment of a legendary encounter among a Daoist master, Buddhist monk, and Confucian poet who break into a revelatory fit of laughter after a long day of conversation and wine. The subject was exported to Japan along with Zen Buddhism in the 1300s and later became the purview of professional painters such as those of the early Kano school. Sekishō Shōan was affiliated with a satellite Kano studio in the eastern castle town of Odawara.


On view from June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

This painting depicts the statesman-poet-scholar Sugawara Michizane (845–903) as Tenjin, the deified being he became following his unjust death in exile, and the calamities his angry spirit inflicted upon the imperial court in Kyoto. After his deification, Michizane was revered as a god of agriculture and patron of the falsely accused. One guise in which he is often represented is that of “Totō Tenjin,” or Tenjin on his way to China to visit a Zen Buddhist master. Rosetsu’s vision of Totō Tenjin reflects the artist’s early style, when he was strongly influenced by the deliberate, naturalistic mode of his master, Maruyama Ōkyo (1733–1795), founder of the Maruyama school.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

This pair of screens portrays well-known but seldom pictorialized stories. At right is Huang Chuping, a shepherd who gained the ability to transform stones into sheep. Flanked by his skeptical brother and a young attendant, Chuping fixes his gaze on a bright white rock in the bottom of the third panel, where a smudge of ink suggests an impending transformation. At left is a pair of recluses. Xu You, disquieted after declining an offer to take over the empire, rushes to wash his ears in a spring. Chaofu decides that the spring is now too polluted to water his bull.



The screens are a masterwork of the so-called gyō, or “running,” style of ink painting. With origins in Southern Song Chinese painting, it is one of three styles assimilated by medieval Japanese artists and transformed by early Kano school painters, especially Kano Motonobu and his grandson Eitoku (1543–1590).



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

This pair of screens is unusual in its subject matter: the replicas of folding screens painted on the screens themselves offer a fanciful catalogue of workshop styles practiced during the Edo period. They relate to two categories of screens, one known as "Whose Sleeves?" and another called "Thousand Fans." [changed to "Scattered Fans"] Screens of the first type feature representations of variously patterned robes draped over racks; those in the latter category are decorated with fans that have themselves been embellished with pictures or poems. In a nod to the "Thousand Fans" [changed to "Scattered Fans"] format, one of the replica screens seen here features fans decorated with a range of motifs, from vegetables and insects to episodes from courtly narratives. Each compositional type invites playful comparisons between objects that are alike in form but dissimilar in design or execution.



The parade of styles on display here includes those of the Tosa, Unkoku, Rinpa, and even the Hasegawa schools of painting. Judging from the skillfully executed paintings on two of the screens, illustrating scenes from the Tale of Genji, it is likely that the artist trained primarily with a Tosa master. The Tosa School is best known for its colorful miniatures depicting the lives of the courtiers and military men of bygone eras, and it is considered the primary avenue of transmission of the yamato-e style.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

The central scroll depicting the Eight Daoist Immortals of ancient China is flanked by paintings of cranes and monkeys. Most of the immortals are easily identifiable. In the foreground are two who are often paired in Japan: Li Tieguai, who creates a miniature image of himself by blowing into the air, and Liu Haichan, with his mythical toad. Behind them is the sole female member of the Eight, He Xiangu, with a peach, symbol of fertility, longevity, and purity. In the background the famous Lu Dongbin paints an image of his dragon adversary in the air, while Zhang Guolao releases a miniature mule from a bag. The old gentleman flying down through the sky on a crane may be Zhongli Quan, considered the leader of the group.



The painter of this triptych, Kano Tanshin, was the eldest son of Tan’yū (1602–1674), influential head of the Kano school during the early Edo period, when the school monopolized the patronage of the powerful shoguns.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Puppies frolic in the snow, their joyful exuberance amplified by the painter’s animated brushwork onthe dogs’ curved tails and wild fur. These paintings were originally created as four sliding door panels but are now hinged to form a pair of two-panel screens. The painting on the reverse of the panels, which depict seven puppies and bamboo (alluding to an ancient Chinese theme known as the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove), is in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum. Following the style of his early teacher Maruyama Ōkyo, especially his naturalistic depiction of animals, birds, and fish, Rosetsu established a reputation as an unrestrained andimaginative painter.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

On the right-hand panel, white plum blossoms, a harbinger of spring, stand out against fine-grained wood and the stark branches of a leafless tree. The companion panel features flowers and grasses of late summer and early autumn: morning glories, pampas grasses, white and blue bellflowers, and exuberant white, pink, and red chrysanthemums. Flowers of Spring and Autumn combines the highly stylized renditions of natural elements for which Kōrin became famous and the ink painting in the Chinese style that was the foundation of his artistic training.



The signature “Hokkyō Kōrin” appears in the right-hand panel’s lower right corner, and both panels bear the artist’s distinctive round seal reading “Koresuke.” The brushwork and signature style suggest that this diptych dates to just after Kōrin was granted the honorific title Hokkyō (Bridge of the Law).



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

A turbulent sea, a rocky foreground, and layers of fin-shaped mountains receding into the background are the principal pictorial elements of this painting. A boatman poles his vessel past the dangerous current and foreground rocks. Roshū, student and adopted son of the renowned and individualistic artist Nagasawa Rosetsu (1754–1799), whose works are exhibited nearby, demonstrates his skill with the brush as well as a sense of drama, perhaps encouraged by his untrammeled teacher. Roshū was an artist in the refined Maruyama-Shijō tradition, to which his adoptive father had initially belonged but later renounced; this painting contains only hints of Rosetsu’s vigorous and dynamic mature style.


On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

The sophisticated double gourd shape of this flower basket mimics a form found in many Chinese and Japanese ceramics, and its surface is ornamented with the character “kotobuki” 壽, meaning “long life.” Katō Tōshōsai (active early twentieth century), a lesser-known bamboo artisan of the Kansai region, maintained a workshop in Tsu City, the capital of Mie Prefecture. Although we know little about his life, his karamono-style works are of the highest quality, including a basket previously owned by the Imperial Household and now in the collection of the Museum of the Imperial Collections, Tokyo.

Jurōjin, one of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune, depicted wearing a tall cap and leaning on a bamboo staff, is accompanied by a deer, who holds a magical fungus in its mouth. A rolled up scroll tied to the end of the deity’s bamboo staff seems to be tangled in the branches above. Kishi Ganku, who studied paintings of the Maruyama-Shijō school and others when he was in his twenties, later established his own artistic lineage, whose members endeavored to meld Japanese painting styles with elements of Western realism. While his handling of the trees and rocks follows a standard Japanese approach to landscape, his treatment of Jurōjin’s facial features exhibits a characteristic interest in naturalism.



On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

This poem card, or shikishi, features the work of the celebrated calligrapher Shōkadō Shōjō. His elegant transcription of a tenth-century poem was brushed onto an underpainting of clematis in gold and silver paint thought to have been created by Tawaraya Sōtatsu, whose paintings inspired generations of Rinpa artists. The poem reads:



Tare o ka mo

shiru hito ni sen

Takasago no

matsu no mukashi no

tomo nara naku ni



Who is there left

that really knows me?

Though the pines of Takasago

have always been there,

I cannot call them “friends.”



—Trans. John T. Carpenter



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Kenzan’s major contribution to Kyoto pottery and Rinpa aesthetics was his invention of modes of decoration that drew on his education, paintings of the early 1600s, and illustrated books. The brightly colored, stylized patterns became identified with his workshop. He collaborated with his older brother, Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716), on ceramics featuring Kōrin’s simplified designs of flowers, plants, and figures on square dishes that recall the format of shikishi poem cards.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Botanka Shōhaku (1443–1527) was a medieval priest and waka poet. Here the learned man holds a fan painted with a Chinese-style landscape; a closed book lies at his feet. The artist, Maruyama Ōkyo, is renowned today as the founder of the Maruyama school of painting. Although the work is a copy of an earlier painting, Ōkyo’s delineation of the face nonetheless reflects a concern with the realistic portrayal of human figures.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

These screens feature a profusion of flowering plants and vegetables painted with “boneless” brushwork (without outlines) in mineral colors and ink on a gold-leaf ground. They were created by an eighteenth-century follower of the Rinpa style established by Tawaraya Sōtatsu (ca. 1570–ca. 1640).



Flowers and flowering grasses of the four seasons, including cotton roses, dandelions, irises, violets, and wild wisteria, are depicted on the right screen; vegetables—such as carrots, corn, eggplants, millet, peas, radishes, and turnips—predominate on the left. Thirty-four flowering plants and thirty-two vegetables have been identified. The broad-leafed vegetation on the left creates a bold visual contrast to the delicate flora on the companion screen. During the eighteenth century, Chinese pharmacology and Western botany drew the attention of Japanese intellectuals not only to plants linked to classical literary traditions but also to domestic flowers and vegetables in their natural environs.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Watery ink and small gold flecks sprinkled among valleys and mist create a luminous night scene under a hazy moon. The gentleman riding in the boat on the right screen is the famous Chinese poet Li Bo (701–762), who was inspired by moonlit Mount Emei Sichuan to compose a poem. Four years later, he returned to the area and composed a longer poem. In Japan, the two poems became particularly famous. Shiokawa Bunrin’s training was in the realist school of Shijō, but he was also familiar with the aesthetics of other artistic circles, especially the literati painters. These screens demonstrate Bunrin’s knowledge of Western perspective, especially in his treatment of the valley stream.
On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022Watery ink and small gold flecks sprinkled among valleys and mist create a luminous night scene under a hazy moon. The gentleman riding in the boat on the right screen is the famous Chinese poet Li Bo (701–762), who was inspired by moonlit Mount Emei Sichuan to compose a poem. Four years later, he returned to the area and composed a longer poem. In Japan, the two poems became particularly famous. Shiokawa Bunrin’s training was in the realist school of Shijō, but he was also familiar with the aesthetics of other artistic circles, especially the literati painters. These screens demonstrate Bunrin’s knowledge of Western perspective, especially in his treatment of the valley stream.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

In ceramics, the burst of color and decorative design that characterized the art of the Momoyama period (1573–1615) became prominent again with Nonomura Ninsei (ca. 1646–1694), whose vivid overglaze patterns were inspired by the beauty of the changing seasons and landscapes of Kyoto. These traditions influenced Kiyomizu ware, produced near the temple Kiyomizudera and embellished with green, blue, and gold overglaze motifs. This hexagonal jar is based on a famous prototype owned by the temple Yoshiminedera.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

On view August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

A narrow body of water is surrounded by land on three sides, with the fourth opening to allow a slender sailboat to come into view. Contrasting ink tones, from coal black to pearl gray, are united by the watery gray wash.



Around 1699 the painter of this small, lyrical landscape helped the legendary Rinpa masters Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716) and his younger brother Kenzan (1663–1743) in their venture into the commercial production of decorated ceramics. Watanabe Shikō, then still a teenager, decorated some of their wares with Kano-style painting. Shikō subsequently created a style of his own, in which he successfully synthesized the academic orthodoxy of the Kano school and the decorative style of Rinpa.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Taira no Kiyomori (1118–1181) can be considered the first of the great samurai-generalissimos of Japanese history. His victories in the Hōgen and Heiji Insurrections marked the rise of the provincial warrior class to positions of absolute political power. Although Kiyomori was appointed to the position of dajō-daijin (prime minister, the highest court position) and married his daughters into the imperial family, eventually the Taira clan he led was overwhelmed by the Minamoto clan, as related in the medieval martial epic The Tale of the Heike. The poignant account of Kiyomori falling ill and taking Buddhist vows is shown here. Yamada Shinzan, one of the most prominent Okinawan painters of Nihonga (modern “Japanese-style painting”), was a student of the nationalist and pro-war Nihonga master Kobori Tomoto (1864–1931). He lost two sons in World War II and was caught up in the political affairs of Okinawa during and after the war and in the subsequent U.S. Occupation. While further research is required, this painting can likely be read in the context of Okinawa’s loss of independence.


On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

This pair of screens, painted in vivid colors on a brilliant gold-leaf background, presents a budding willow and a cherry tree in full bloom alongside two maple trees at the peak of their crimson glory. The compositions are distinctive for their array of related springtime and autumnal plants and flowers, all with poetic significance in haiku of the period. While hanging-scroll paintings by Sakai Hōitsu abound, only a half dozen or so pairs of screens in this six-panel format are known to survive, and these in particular stand out for their originality of composition, strong visual impact, and projection of lyrical elegance.



This work can be dated to late in Hōitsu’s career, when he was joined in his studio by his closest and most talented pupil, Suzuki Kiitsu (1796–1858).



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

In a garden of spring blossoms and mountain-shaped boulders, a group of gentlemen relax, converse, and accept wine and delicacies from youthful boy-attendants. Eroded ornamental garden rocks like those from Lake Tai identify the scene as taking place in China. A hazy moon hangs in the sky while bands of mist, rendered by unpainted areas of silk, obscure the far distance. The poetic title derives from an early, perhaps original, box inscription.



Nakabayashi Chikutō was born the son of a doctor in Nagoya, where he became the protégé of a well-to-do collector of Chinese paintings. He eventually moved to Kyoto with Yamamoto Baiitsu (1783–1856), and both became artists of the Nanga (Literati) school. In addition to painting, he designed images for woodblock-printed illustrated books and authored a number of painting treatises. This work, with its lively subject matter, is unusual for Chikutō, who often created tranquil landscapes in ink, with little, if any, human activity.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

This large flower basket in the shape of an ancient Chinese bronze vessel is a traditional karamono work (a term for Chinese-style objects), created with seamlessly intertwined, alternating plaiting patterns and rattan accents. Like many bamboo artists of his time, Iizuka Hōsai II first produced the Chinese‑style works preferred by literati circles, but he eventually developed his own mode. A master of refined plaiting, he won several prizes at government‑sponsored exhibitions and eventually emerged as one of the representative artists of the Taishō period (1912–26). He helped prepare the path for the next generation, when bamboo craftsmanship gained official recognition as an art form.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

A master of refined plaiting, Hōsai II often created bamboo works in the shape of objects traditionally made in other media. He designed this cabinet—meant to be used as a portable shrine—in the form of an oi, or backpack carried by traveling mountain monks or pilgrims. Oi were generally constructed from wooden boards, with two vertical supports at the sides; a slightly more elaborate version comprised a box-like container with four legs, and it is this type that Hōsai was imitating. He substituted tightly plaited bamboo for the basic structure and the central bottle-shaped wooden slat, which holds the backpack’s doors in place, and used different types of plaiting patterns to embellish the various sections. According to the inscription on its back leg, it was made in 1911 as a special order for a Mr. Kondo.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

Trained in the sencha tea ceremony as well as traditional flower arrangement, Tanabe Chikuunsai I became a prominent member of literati artistic circles, a social network he used to advance recognition of bamboo craftsmanship. The Ryūrikyō style of basketry he invented relates to the art of Yanagisawa Kien (1703–1758), an early Nanga (Literati) painter with the sobriquet “Ryūrikyō,” who made pictures of bamboo baskets filled with flowers or fruits.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

The artist covered this box in black lacquer and decorated the lid with blue dayflowers. The bloom, which lasts for a single day, was used to produce dyes and pigments for ukiyo-e prints and textiles. The decoration is executed in the kinma technique: patterns are carved into black ground layers, filled in with colored lacquer, lacquered again to smooth the surface, and finally polished to a gloss. The technique, introduced to Japan from China, was originally developed in northern Thailand, Laos, and Burma. Okada Akito exhibited regularly at the government-sponsored annual art exhibitions, including the Nitten (after 1947), and he served as a lacquer-restoration master for the Imperial Household collections.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

The exterior of the lid is decorated with ampas grass executed in relief (takamaki-e) nd flat (hiramaki-e) “sprinkled picture” gold ecoration as wll as fine mother-of-pearl nlay. The interior is embellished with the esign of an autumn moon partially covered by clouds. A separate wood plate (suzuri-ita) for calligraphy paper completes the writing box. On the evening of the September full moon, it is still customary in Japan to gather and serve round rice dumplings and sake as offerings to invoke an abundant harvest. The custom of the mid-autumn moon viewing originated in China; during the Heian period (794–1185), Japanese aristocrats gathered to recite poetry under the full moon of the eighth lunar month.


On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

Active during the second golden age of Kyoto pottery and based in the Kiyomizu-Gojōzaka area, Nin’ami Dōhachi produced an extensive body of work, including tea ceremony wares, as here, as well as sencha tea wares, ornamental objects, and sculptures. He successfully revived the decorative styles of Nonomura Ninsei (ca. 1640s–1690s) and Ogata Kenzan (1663–1743; see the adjacent work), who represent the first peak of Kyoto ware.



This vessel, with its powerful composition symbolic of resilience—bamboo bends but does not break under heavy snow—was intended for the tea ceremony. It is a re-creation of one of Kenzan’s popular works. The application of the thick, milky glaze creates the impression of an intense snowstorm.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Iizuka Rōkansai was a charismatic leader for a new generation of bamboo artists, who continued to push the boundaries of the medium and develop a rich lexicon of novel shapes, techniques, and styles. Nakata Kinseki, for example, one of Rōkansai’s lesser-known disciples, created this striking tea-ceremony chest using his master’s signature embroidered-plaiting technique (take sashi-ami).



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

Some of the finest tea wares of the Momoyama period, including Black Seto, were produced in the Mino kilns in Gifu Prefecture. Sen no Rikyū (1522–1591), the influential arbiter of the aesthetics of tea, preferred “imperfect,” spontaneously potted domestic ceramics and used them as the basis of the simple and austere wabi style.



On view from March 8, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from March 8, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from March 8, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from March 8, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from March 8, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from March 8, 2021–April 24, 2022

Sesson Yūbai, a Rinzai Zen monk, was both proficient in calligraphy and learned in Chinese poetry. One of the most respected poets of his time, he spent twenty‑three years in China, and his calligraphy reveals the influence of the latest Chinese styles.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

An important figure in Kyoto Zen Buddhist circles, Sōboku was the seventy-second abbot of the Daitokuji Temple complex and founded its Ryōgen’in subtemple in 1502.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

Excavations of Momoyama-period urban residential sites show mixtures of wares from various kilns, including Bizen, Mino, and Iga, demonstrating the expanding market for domestic ceramics. Although the actual movement of potters between kilns was regulated and restricted, imitations of other wares, including Iga, have been found in Mino. The potters at the Motoyashiki kiln there emulated the irregular form, rustic surface texture, incidental dents, and “ear” lugs that characterize Iga ceramics. Whimsical Mino-Iga water jars like this one were popular in the early seventeenth century.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

Miyata Ryōhei was born in Sado Island, Niigata Prefecture, as the third son of the wax-casting artist Miyata Randō. This pure silver jar belongs to a series titled Springen, a reference to leaping dolphins, the artist’s favored motif as he aims to express the sea world in metal. He regularly presented his works at the Japan Art Academy (Nitten) exhibitions. He now serves as Chairman of the Ministry of Education’s Culture Council and Commissioner for Cultural Affairs.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Hannya Tamotsu is a sixteenth-generation metal artist based Toyama Prefecture. In his unique casting technique, different melted alloys are poured into the same mold at calculated intervals. Due to the different melting points of the three metals he used here, they form patterns rather than blending. He is the only artist known to have created triple-metal cast work. In 2016 he received the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Silver Rays, from the Emperor of Japan.

This box has a unique appearance–the bottom is boat-shaped, while the large, overhanging lid almost covers it and dominates the object. The exterior of the lid is amalgam-gilded, with a fine grid of diagonal lines scored into the surface to expose the bright reddish copper underneath. Born in Saitama, Iino Ichirō is a Professor Emeritus at the Tokyo University of the Arts. He has won several major prizes for his jewelry.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

In 2010 Tamagawa was designated a Living National Treasure for his distinguished hammering (tankin) technique. He was born in Niigata Prefecture into a family of copperware masters, and from 1963 to 1965 he apprenticed in Toyko with Sekiya Shirō (1907–1994), a Living National Treasure. Wood-grain metal (mokume-gane) is a multi-alloy laminate with distinctive layered patterns, which often resembles the grain of wood or the look of marble.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

The silver flower container bears a depiction of a forest by night, the outlines of the dark trees shown as if lit by the moon. The poetic design looks like an ink painting, but its refined, delicate lines were cut from thin metal sheets and soldered onto the surface, then hammered so that they lie flush with the ground. The artist became a Living National Treasure in 1995, in recognition of his skills in hammering (tankin).



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

This large bowl (hachi) was created by welding several types of metal in straight lines to make a rhythmical striped pattern. The precision of the technique is further expressed by the sharp angles of the vessel, formed by soldering the cutout triangles of the welded billet. Born in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Yamamoto Akira graduated from the Tokyo Designer Gakuin College. In 2014 he was designated a Living National Treasure for his skills in chiseling (chōkin).



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

Sako Ryūhei is known for mokume-gane, a technique in which several metals are used to create effects resembling wood-grain patterns. Layers of copper, gold, silver, and other alloys are forged and deposited in a single thick billet, which is then incised from the top. When the irregularities are hammered flat, the characteristic patterns form. He earned his master’s degree in 2002 from Hiroshima City University’s Department of Design and Applied Arts.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Most alloys are hard, but oborogin, an alloy of copper and silver, is one of the hardest, making it extremely difficult to use in hammer work: it takes great skill and physical strength to beat a sheet into a large vessel without cracks and fissures. This flower container displays delicate patterns created by the hammer and a harmonious shape. Taguchi Toshichika was designated a Living National Treasure in 2006 for his skill in hammering (tankin).



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

Iede Takahiro creates complex textures through his unique strip-weaving and soldering method. Drawing inspiration from traditional Japanese bamboo basketry, the artist first creates a flat sheet by tightly weaving various metal strips according to a pattern, then uses melted silver as an adhesive. Finally, he creates the shape through precise hammering. In 2016 he received the Japanese government’s Medal with Purple Ribbon for Artistic Achievement.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

The son of a metalsmith, Tanaka trained both with his father and at the Tokyo Metropolitan Crafts High School. He is known for his mastery at fusing gold, silver, and copper alloys into luminous surfaces and onto his signature hammered boxes. In this work, the metal alloy squares are welded into a checkered pattern. His career was launched in 1971, when his art was shown at the annual exhibition of the Japan Art Academy (Nitten).



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

This early work exemplifies the tour-de-force inlay techniques of Katsura Morihito. The inverted V-shaped patterns seem to overlap on the hammered silver and copper alloy body. The artist studied under his father, Katsura Moriyuki, beginning in 1960, and later graduated from the Musashino Art University Junior College of Art and Design. Known for his incising and chiseling (chōkin) techniques, he was designated a Living National Treasure in 2008.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

This flower container has a uniquely formed mouth that imitates waves. The artist created the vessel’s shape by hammering, then inlaid the decoration to express light reflecting off water as the tide surges onto the shore. The ground metal was incised with a fine diagonal lattice of vertical and horizontal lines in a tri-directional crosshatching pattern to produce a cloth-like grain, then thin gold and lead sheets were inlaid through hammering. After graduating from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Tokyo University of the Arts in 1969, Ōsumi studied under numerous famous masters. In 2015 she became the first woman metalwork artist designated a Living National Treasure, in recognition of her mastery of hammering (tankin).



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Based in Kanazawa, Nakagawa studied the local Kaga inlay technique (originally developed in the seventeenth century) starting in 1974, under the well-known metal artist Takahashi Kaishū (1905–2004). In 2004 Nakagawa was recognized as a Living National Treasure for his mastery of chiseling (chōkin) and metal inlay (zōgan). Over the years he has revitalized and modernized the traditions of the art form. He uses numerous metal types and alloys to create a vibrant, dynamic surface through precisely cut and inlayed segments.



The present work was inspired by the skyscrapers and city lights of New York. The front represents the cityscape at 7 a.m., while the back shows the same view at 7 p.m.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

Ōzawa was born in Toyama Prefecture, in an area famous for metalcraft. He studied traditional casting techniques and became a master of the yakigata (fired mold) method. He invented a cast-wrapping technique called igurumi, in which the metal decoration to be inset is applied to the inner surface of a mold before molten metal is poured inside. Ōzawa was designated a Living National Treasure in 2005 for his mastery of casting (chūkin).



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

This vase was probably inspired by the Art Deco style. The silver body bears refined, complex wavelike patterns with painted gold accents. Ōtsuki Masako graduated from the Department of Design at Tokyo’s Tama Art University. Her work is distinguished by the hatsuri (shave and scrape) technique, in which fine, angled lines are carved into the base using bladed chisels. The resulting surface has a unique texture, reflecting light differently from various angles.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

Nakamura Takuo is celebrated for revitalizing a traditional Rinpa aesthetic, but in a bold, innovative style. He employs Kutani-ware glazing techniques on his stoneware vessels; some are functional—such as tea bowls, water jars, or flower vases—while others such as this one are sculptural. This “vessel that is not a vessel” has a form that resembles a folding screen and was inspired by a love poem by the courtier-poet Fujiwara no Toshiyuki (died 901 or 907).



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

A large, cursive rendition of the character for "waterfall," is followed by two lines of calligraphy, in Chinese, and then the signature of the artist, reading "Kansetsu," also in cursive script. The characters were written with a brush moderately saturated with dark ink, although several of the strokes exhibit the characteristic known as "flying white," in which the hairs of the brush separate enough to turn the stroke—usually written at speed—into a sweep of parallel lines revealing the blank paper beneath.



Kansetsu was an admirer of Chinese culture and art in an era when many other Japanese artists turned to the West for models. His idiosyncratic writing style, which appears on many of his paintings, may reflect the influence of his father, a Chinese studies specialist and Confucian scholar who introduced his son to Chinese literature. Although generally classified as a painter of Nihonga (Japanese painting), he also studied Nanga (painting influenced by Chinese literati), traveled in China on a regular basis, and was recognized for his abilities by being named to the Art Committee of the Imperial Household and becoming a member of the Imperial Art Academy.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

On this silver box, a combination of sheets has been used to create a geometric pattern with fine gradations. Oshiyama Motoko studied metal carving, chiseling, and hammering techniques at Tokyo’s Bunka Gakuen University. Later she trained with the Living National Treasure Okuyama Hōseki (born 1937). She draws inspiration from natural phenomena, welding and soldering metals together to produce refined objects with swirling patterns and abstract designs.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

Against the brilliantly rendered background of a cherry tree in full bloom, a peacock perches on a branch with its tail feathers gloriously arrayed. The peahen with more subdued plumage looks upward toward her flamboyant companion. Characteristic of Nihonga (Japanese-style paintings) of the early twentieth century, this tour de force of modern art has an overall feeling of flatness and an emphasis on surface, due in part to the nearly pristine layers of thickly applied mineral pigments. At the same time, the artist has created a sense of volume and simple perspective in the way the tree branches are modeled and through the placement of the rock on which the peahen stands.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

A flock of egrets has descended upon a pond where lotus plants are bursting into bloom. Yamamoto Baiitsu, one of the most prolific and highly esteemed Nanga (Literati) painters of the Owari domain (present-day Nagoya), was renowned for his bird-and-flower paintings and ink landscapes. This composition departs from his standard output by taking the two primary pictorial motifs—egrets and lotuses—and repeating them in profusion. The effective use of perspective adds a naturalistic flavor to the depiction not often found in the artist’s works. Baiitsu also mastered the “boneless” (mokkotsu) painting technique, in which outlines are discarded and pigments naturally pool to form the edges of forms, as seen in the rendering of the lotus leaves.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

A regal, reclining tigress nurses her cub, while an adult male tiger—possibly her mate—stands poised to drink at a narrow mountain stream, his mouth open in a snarl. Although the landscape is rendered simply in ink monochrome, the thick fur and sinuous muscularity of the tigers are painted in detail, with the color wash on their coats and the yellow silk background around them creating the impression of sunlight. Chikudō, the fourth-generation head of the Kyoto-based Kishi school, advocated the practice of sketching from life and could have seen live tigers starting in the late 1860s. Like the founder of the school, Ganku, he became famous for his meticulous tiger paintings, one of which was exhibited at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The artist and several of his contemporaries established a style that blended traditional Japanese painting with elements of Western realism and perspective.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

In East Asian cultures, pine trees are venerated as symbols of longevity and virtue. In both screens on display here, two giant pines, each set against a smoothly gilded background, lean markedly to the left, but the composition is balanced by the branches, which reach toward one another. Flamboyant brushstrokes of coal-black ink define the hefty trunks and spiky needles, resulting in a sense of powerful monumentality. Together with his father, Suzuki Hyakunen, Shonen was one of the leading painters active in Kyoto during the Meiji period. After the country became more open to the West in the second half of the nineteenth century, they made efforts to preserve the subjects and style of traditional Japanese painting.



On view from August 28, 2021–April 24, 2022

This rare print captures the excitement of Kabuki theater at the turn of the eighteenth century and the gender-bending roles that enticed audiences. Two actors participate in a cherry-blossom viewing excursion beneath curtains decorated with their respective crests. On the right is Nakamura Denkurō (1662–1713) playing the part of a samurai retainer (yakko). His scowling features, be-damned-with-you gesturing, and ruffian stance encapsulate the exaggeratedly boisterous aragoto (rough stuff) roles for which he became famous. In front of him is Matsumoto Hyōzō (b. 1669) as the retainer’s companion, depicted as a flamboyantly garbed wakashu (male youth). Hyōzō achieved fame for his sensuous performances as an onnagata, the term for male actors who dressed as women on stage, as well as for playing effeminate wakashu parts, as here.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

The first generation of innovative Torii school print artists, active from the end of the seventeenth to the early eighteenth century, established dominance in the portrayal of actors of the Kabuki stage. Initially, there was little concern with trying to capture actual facial characteristics, and identities were indicated by actors’ crests incorporated into the design. This dynamic and boldly hand-colored print is meant to represent an Ichikawa family actor—perhaps Danjūrō I (1660–1704). He is shown performing a ritual exorcism at the Setsubun (Spring Equinox) festival, when dried soybeans were scattered while people shouted “Demons begone! Good luck enter!” (Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi).



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

Ukiyo-e printmakers of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries focused as a rule on depictions of actors and women of the demimonde, not to mention erotica for popular consumption. But ukiyo-e artists also participated in the popularization of the Japanese literary classics by producing easy-to-afford pictures of favorite episodes. Here, for instance, the celebrated warrior Taira no Atsumori appears mounted on a horse near shore amid a naval battle recorded in the medieval martial epic Tale of the Heike, which chronicles the Genpei wars of 1170–85.



Sugimura, who rarely signed his prints, was one of the ukiyo-e artists active during the same period as the celebrated print artist, book illustrator, and painter Hishikawa Moronobu (died 1694) in his final years.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

In a fantastic urban panorama of Osaka, ten Kabuki actors out of costume are shown enjoying a summer evening along the bank of the Yodo River, chatting with each other, some seated on wood benches. Fireworks illuminate a starry night sky over the Tenma Bridge, probably for the Tenjin Festival held annually on the twenty-fifth day of the seventh month. Spectators on the banks and in riverboats enliven the scene. The actors hold summer fans and smoking paraphernalia, and a puppy plays with a sandal of Nakamura Tomozō on the far left. This collaborative project is the work of artists in the circle of the poet and print designer Jukōdō Yoshikuni (active ca. 1813–32).



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

At first glance, we view this work as a portrait of a languid young woman garbed in a loosely fitting kimono and about to use a straw to drink from a Western-style glass tumbler. Yet the portrait takes on more complex undertones of gender identification once we know that the painter was the only openly gay artist of the Kyoto cultural scene of his day and often made portraits of himself cross-dressed in women’s kimonos. Tadaoto’s paintings invert and subvert the idea of the male gaze in that he was a gay man imagining himself in the guise and role of the women he depicted. Drawing on diverse influences, including eighth-century Japanese textile patterns, Botticelli’s Primavera (late 15th century), and ukiyo-e courtesan prints of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the portrait plays on, and challenges, the viewer’s expectations of feminine beauty.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

The focus of this composition is a young woman dressed as a gallant samurai, performing the Kabuki skit Chaya asobi, or “Teahouse Entertainments.” Her comic sidekick, the manservant Saruwaka (Young Monkey)—also played by a woman—holds a branch of maple leaves or flowers.



In its earliest phase, Kabuki was performed by female dancers or courtesans playing both men and women in sexually provocative skits. Kabuki as we know it today—a respected form of classical theater with complex plots performed by male actors in men’s and women’s roles—did not emerge until the end of the seventeenth century. This recently rediscovered work is one of a pair; its mate depicts merrymaking in the Kitano district of Kyoto.



On view from June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

A courtesan and her two young female attendants enjoy watching a type of revolving shadow lantern. When a candle was lit and placed inside the lantern, the rising air current caused the wheel to spin. Here, the lantern projects an image of a parading courtesan, child attendants, and servants. Though the accompanying libretto text at the top is titled “Names of Courtesans” (Keisei nayose), it is actually a playful song incorporating the names of brothel districts.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

Stock characters in Jōruri (puppet) and Kabuki plays (based on real-life figures), Osome is the daughter of an Osaka oil-seller, and Hisamatsu an apprentice at her father’s shop. When her parents refuse to let them marry, the two die in a joint suicide. In a final meeting, Osome tends to a tray garden while Hisamatsu arrives with a miniature paper egret. The text above is a ballad (saimon) recounting their tragic tale.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

Segawa Kikunojō II (1741–1773), a celebrated onnagata (male actor of women’s roles), plays the popular character of Oshichi, a greengrocer’s daughter, who has fallen in love with a temple page named Kichisaburō. The actor himself wrote the hokku (seventeen-syllable verse), using his poetry name, Rokō:



Kabuto ni mo / mune ni omoi ya / fūji-bumi



The feelings in my heart

extend even to this doll—

and in folded love letters.



—Trans. John T. Carpenter



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

Among the more unusual works by Hayakawa Shōkosai I is a Western‑style rattan bowler hat made with mat plaiting (gozame‑ami) and other traditional techniques. Favored by Ichikawa Danjūrō IX (1838–1903), the greatest Meiji‑period star of the Kabuki theater, Shōkosai’s hats are a great example of the careful balance he struck between the complex Chinese techniques and his own innovations inspired by Japanese art and Western culture.



On view from June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

This elegant lacquer pipe case once hung from its owner’s obi sash, kept in place by the attached netsuke. A fashionable man would have carried a pipe (kiseru), for smoking small servings of finely cut tobacco, in a stylish case (kiseruzutsu) with a matching tobacco pouch (tabako-ire). They served as contemporary fashion accessories and conversation subjects. This two-part case features a maki-e design of wood sorrel, a wildflower similar to clover.



On view from June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

Although Suizan studied Nihonga, or “Japanese-style painting,” certain Western influences can be seen in this work, especially in the three-dimensional depiction of the woman. The scene is presented in an ultrarealistic style, with careful attention given to the details on the tea implements, the smoke from the brazier, and the figure’s facial features and hair. The subject is the artist’s daughter, who lived in New York.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

This modern-looking obi (sash for a kimono) was inspired by ancient sarasa (chintz), the pattern-dyed, vivid cotton fabrics that originated in India and became popular in Japan beginning in the late sixteenth century, when European ships began to transport them to nearby Asian countries as well as to Europe. Even in the twentieth century, the designs of these colorful fabrics are still being used and refreshed.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

Like Broadway in New York, the Sakaichô and Fukiyachô quarters were the center of Edo's theater district, which was particularly lively on the night of kaomise, the opening ceremony of the Kabuki season.

Toyoharu, founder of the Utagawa school, was known for using one-point perspective (uki-e), a Western technique. Okumura Masanobu (1686–1764) is credited as the first Japanese artist to use one-point perspective in depicting interior space, and Toyoharu was the first to master the device to depict outdoor scenes in ukiyo-e prints and paintings.


On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

In ukiyo-e prints, male youths known as wakashu—identified by unshaved forelocks and an upright topknot—are often paired with courtesans. This image belongs to a set of fourteen erotic prints known as makura-e (pillow pictures), or shunga (spring pictures) in modern parlance. While most makura-e within a set tend to be explicit, there are usually two or three earlier in the sequence, as here, that merely hint at romance.

On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

Considered the founder of the lineage of ukiyo-e woodblock print artists, Moronobu drew on his experience growing up in a family of textile designers to create prints with bold outlines and graphic renderings of kimono patterns. Here, a female entertainer, who has set aside her three-stringed shamisen, and a young samurai, who has put down his sword, engage in playful banter. The monochrome print (sumizuri-e) was produced with ink, then colored by hand.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

This hand-colored print is from a series of twelve showing parodies of courtesans in settings and poses that call to mind stories from ancient Chinese lore. Here, a woman is presented as Tekkai (Chinese: [Li] Tieguai), who was reputed to be able to leave his own body for extended periods. The courtesan magically exhales her spirit in the manner ascribed to Tekkai, creating a dreamlike apparition of herself strolling outside.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

In a scene set in snowy hills, the noted Osaka actor Arashi Rikan II (1788–1837) plays a role inspired by the famous medieval warrior and swordsman Miyamoto Musashi (ca. 1584–1645). The hokku (17-syllable poem) by the actor reads:



Yuku michi o

saguri-ashi nari

oborozuki



Along the path I pursue,

my feet find the way

beneath the misty moon.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

The flamboyantly garbed sumo wrestler, played by the famous Utaemon IV, is drawn from a scene of the Kabuki play The Rise of the One Thousand Ryō Wrestler (Sekitori senryō nobori). Yet the character was not competing in a normal sumo match, but rather one held by patrons of two rival wrestlers, each of whom hoped to raise enough money to ransom a courtesan from an Osaka brothel.



On view from June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

This print seems to have unintentionally turned out to be memorial portrait of Arashi Koroku IV (1783–1826), commemorating a farewell performance that never happened. The actor is shown here defiantly posed as the female bandit Hotei Oichi with the shakuhachi bamboo flute, pipe (kiseru), and cloth purse associated with such roles. The accompanying headnote and verse by the actor’s wife expresses how distraught she is by the unexpected passing of her husband.

On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

The prominent Kabuki actor Ichikawa Danjūrō VII (1791–1859) gazes at a portrait of his ancestor Danjūrō I (1660–1704). Seemingly in confrontation, the men adopt exaggerated poses (mie) and lance each other with piercing gazes. The famous family crest of three nested squares (mimasu) is incorporated into the design of the actors' costumes and into the frame of the portrait of Danjūrō I. The print also includes two kyōka (witty thirty-one-syllable poems).

On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

This dramatic bust portrait captures the snarling facial expression of the most popular Kabuki actor of the early nineteenth century—Ichikawa Danjūrō VII (1791–1859). His distinctive large nose, intense glare, and costume, associated with a role his family made famous, would have allowed fans of the day to immediately identify the actor. The kumadori striped make up, flamboyant wig, and orange red robes decorated with a mimasu (triple rice measuring box) crest are associated with the famed role Shibaraku (Stop Right There!).

This unlined summer kimono has a combination of traditional motifs, depicting court carriages (gosho-guruma), pinks, bellflowers, and pines along with flying plovers and flowing water. Long associated with garments of high-ranking samurai women, the court-carriage design also alludes to the Tale of Genji, as does the motif of a brushwood fence with a gate. However, the style of the composition and the simplified rendering of the motifs are novel.



During the Taishō period, Japanese society enjoyed relative prosperity, while continued modernization gave rise to urban consumer culture. The forward-looking and optimistic outlook of the era is reflected in kimono design, including the revival of certain Edo-period patterns in a new context.



On view from March 8, 2021–August 8, 2021

At first glance it might not be obvious that the trio of plants traditionally known as the Three Friends of Winter (shōchikubai)—pine, bamboo, and plum—are all depicted on this kimono. The evergreen pine, hand-painted above the hem in green glowing gold against the lavender ground, represents longevity and symbolizes renewal. The fast-growing and flexible bamboo, as the woven pattern of the purple fabric, stands for endurance and strength. The crest-shaped plum blossoms, in white embroidery on the shoulders, are the first flowers of spring and epitomize the renewal of nature. Together, these three auspicious patterns, which originated in China, have a long history in Japanese textile art. Here, however, the playful distribution of the motifs on the surface and the division of the space into a larger dark purple section and a narrower, lighter area represent a new, modern take on a conventional subject.



On view from October 14, 2021–April 24, 2022

This rare, early half-length Kabuki actor portrait by Shunshō anticipates the more common use of the format—first by other Katsukawa school artists, then by Utagawa artists and Tōshūsai Sharaku, as demonstrated by prints of the 1790s on the opposite wall. With arms defiantly crossed, shoulders hunched, and an interrogating gaze, the actor seems poised for a confrontation.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

Along with Shunkō (whose work is on the right), Shun’ei was an outstanding member of the Katsukawa school, which specialized in actor prints. The Katsukawa artists established a sophisticated set of visual codes for each individual based on actual facial features, though simplified and abstracted, to create “likeness portraits” (nigao-e). Through familiarity with these conventions, as well as hints provided by crests on costumes, Kabuki fans could easily identify their favorite actors.



Here, a scene from the play The Darkness of Love: Jealous Revenge in the Fifth Month (Koi no yami Satsuki no uwanari) includes Segawa Kikunojō III (1751–1810), on the right in the role of an old woman. He ranks as one of the three greatest onnagata, male actors who played women’s roles, in the history of Edo-period Kabuki.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

In the lineage of Katsukawa artists—who dominated actor print production in the late eighteenth century and created the convention of “likeness portraits” (nigao-e) that transformed the genre—Shunkō was the first student of the founder, Shunshō. While he was signing actor, sumo, and beauty prints with his own name by the early 1770s, Shunkō’s activities as print artist were cut short when he suffered a stroke in his mid-forties.



This diptych (or part of a triptych) captures a scene from New Year’s Flowers: An Ichikawa Soga Play (Hatsuhana Mimasu Soga), one of the countless Kabuki plays that riffs on the medieval vendetta narrative Tale of the Soga Brothers. Oniō Shinzaemon, portrayed here with his wife, is a retainer of Soga Jūrō, one of the protagonists of the story and its theatrical versions.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

Harunobu excelled at elegant reworkings (mitate-e), or “parody pictures” of moments from ancient East Asian literature and lore. His youthful men and women always wear the latest contemporary fashion, yet the poses and settings immediately evoke famous scenes. Here, for instance, anyone familiar with illustrations associated with the Tales of Ise, the tenth-century Japanese literary classic, would immediately recall the episode when the protagonist, Ariwara no Narihira, is traveling to the Eastern provinces and stops by Suruga Bay to gaze at Mount Fuji in the distance. In this playful version, Harunobu has substituted a young woman for the courtier on horseback and a wakashu (male youth) for his retainer.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

Each print in this series of sixteen includes a seasonal pastime. Here, a festively dressed family passes the red lacquered torii gate of a Shinto shrine on their way to a Kagura, or sacred dance performance, associated with the eleventh month of the lunar calendar. The artist borrowed an ancient waka (thirty-one-syllable court poem) to accompany the contemporary scene:



Sugi tateru / mon wa nakeredo /

sato-kagura / kore ya miyai no /

hajime naruran



Though the gateway

has no cypress garlands,

the sacred dances

in the shrine precincts

are about to begin.



—Trans. John T. Carpenter



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

Two young women, depicted in Harunobu’s distinctive style—petite, svelte, and gentle in demeanor—sit on a terrace overlooking Ryōgoku Bridge as the sun sets beside Mount Fuji, to the west of Edo (the former name of Tokyo). The poem puns on the literal meaning of Ryōgoku-bashi: “Bridge of Both Provinces,” referring to Musashi (including Edo) and Shimōsa to the east:



Kawakaze mo / hedataru kuni no /

na nomi nite / onaji yūhi no /

wataru nagahashi



While its name suggests

the breezes across the river

separate two provinces,

the same sunset shines over

both sides of the long bridge.



—Trans. John T. Carpenter



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

This exceedingly rare early print by the pioneering Osaka print artist Ryūkōsai presents the courtesan Umematsu dressed as an Oharame, peasant women who brought bundles of charcoal and other goods from the Ohara area, north of Kyoto, into Osaka. She is garbed for a costume parade held in the summer by local courtesans and teahouse attendants, anticipating the examples of the 1820s and 1830s shown on the nearby wall.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

The actor Toyomatsu III (1743–1796) earned renown in Osaka and Kyoto as an onnagata (male actor of women’s roles). Here he is shown in a performance late in his career of the courtesan Ohaya in the play Hirai Gonpachi’s Visits to Yoshiwara). Hirai Gonpachi was a rōnin (masterless samurai) of the Tottori fief in western Japan who fled to Edo after committing a murder, and had ill-fated affairs in the Yoshiwara licensed quarters.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

Illustrated by the pioneering Osaka painter and print artist Ryūkōsai, this two-volume set comprises woodblock-printed portraits of forty-nine Kabuki actors of the day, each with their own poem. Books like this helped establish a visual code by which fans could identify favorite actors, through facial characteristics and crests on their costumes. On the last page of each volume is a table of the actors with their stage clan names (yagō) and haiku pen names (haimyō).



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

Gochōtei (or Utagawa Sadahiro I) studied with Utagawa Kunisada in Edo, though by around 1830 was working in Osaka. Though he specialized in Kabuki prints, here he has created an image of a Shinmachi courtesan who is dressed in the costume of a shirabyōshi, female performers who dressed in male courtier’s costume. The title suggests that it was meant to parody a sacred dance performed at the dedication of a Shinto shrine.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

The ghost story of Oiwa is based on actual events related in the Ghost Story in Yotsuya on the Tōkaidō Road (Tōkaidō Yotsuya kaidan), which was turned into a popular Kabuki play by Tsuruya Nanboku (1755–1829). Iemon, a masterless samurai, wed Oiwa, a daughter of a warrior family that was hoping to have a male heir to help preserve their family name. After marrying, Iemon poisoned his wife and was haunted by her vengeful spirit.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

By convention, “death prints” (shini-e) commemorating the passing of an actor usually show him garbed in light blue court robes. Nakamura Tamashichi (1836–1860) was an Osaka actor of great promise, whose untimely death at the age of twenty-four resulted in an outpouring of grief by Kabuki fans. Several memorial prints were issued, both by anonymous amateur artists as well as deluxe prints exhibiting the finest printing techniques, as this example by Enjaku.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

Stylistic comparison suggests that this deluxe handscroll painted on silk, though unsigned, was made in the workshop of painter and print artist Moronobu. It captures the pageantry of a grand procession: a daimyo, or feudal lord, and his entourage are en route from their home province to Edo (present-day Tokyo), the military capital of the day.



A special aspect of this depiction of a daimyo’s official delegation is the group of four wakashu (male youths) on elaborately saddled horses attended by grooms; we may assume that these were favorite attendants of the daimyo. Same-sex relationships between elite samurai and wakashu are well documented, but it is rare to see an allusion to it in an official work such as this.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

This uncut triptych of prints creates a tableau of six famous Kabuki actors, playfully depicted as courtesans and their clients in a reception room of a Yoshiwara brothel. Each print also highlights a different traditional Japanese musical instrument, as suggested in the title cartouches by the term sankyoku, or “ensemble of three musical instruments.” The title’s hiyoku, literally “a shared wing,” refers to a loving couple or a courtesan and patron. Here, each couple performs a duet on a single musical instrument. All the actors are men, but most of them were renowned for their ability to take on the appearance and personae of women or effeminate young men. They can be identified by the crests on their robes.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

The Chrysanthemum Boy of Chinese legend was exiled after he was caught walking across the pillow of the monarch, an unforgivable breach of palace decorum. While living in the remote countryside, he discovered that the dewdrops that gathered on chrysanthemum leaves worked as an elixir of immortality. Here, he prepares to inscribe sacred Buddhist phrases on the large lobed chrysanthemum leaf.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

The play that inspired this triptych is loosely based on historical events that unfolded during the power struggle between two courtiers after the death of Emperor Yōmei in A.D. 587. Soga no Umako and Mononobe no Moriya (referred to in the play as Umako Daijin and Umaya Daijin respectively) clashed on who should succeed the deceased emperor. The violent quarrel resulted in Umako assassinating assassinating Moriya, with the intention of then replacing him with his own niece, Suiko, as empress. Concurring with historical fact, Empress Suiko’s brilliant nephew Prince Shōtoku was then appointed her regent.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

This print commemorates a performance of Ebizō V (shown on the right), one of the greatest Kabuki actors of the Edo stage of the nineteenth century, during a time he was performing in Osaka. It shows him as Nippon Daemon, one of the great roles of Japanese theater, waylaying a surprised opponent. In the world of Kabuki, Nippon Daemon was the leader of a band of honorable thieves who only stole from those who made money through corrupt means.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

An unidentified Kabuki actor, perhaps Onoe Tamizo II, performs the role of the One-Legged Umbrella Monster. This delightful apparition is a type of “artifact spirit” (tsukumogami), referring to everyday objects or tools such as umbrellas, brooms, lanterns, sandals, or pots, that turn into ghosts or monsters after they are no longer used. They tend to be more mischievous than evil. When taking on this role, the actor would tie up one leg and hop around on stage.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

The male Kabuki actor Fujikawa Tomokichi III (died 1871) performs as a female ghost from the play A Cloud of Blossoms at Dawn in Sakura (Hana no kumo Sakura no akebono) performed at the Kado-za Theater in Osaka in 1852. We can identify the character as a ghost by her pallor, blue lips, and eerie crouching pose.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

Two Chinese ships approach the port of Nagasaki. The crew of the ship in the foreground works quickly to lower one of the sails as a small vessel approaches with a group of returning traders. An inscription at upper left declares the ships as trading vessels from Qing, China. It is followed by an inscription detailing the mission. The red seal at right bears the name of the print’s publisher, “Bunsaidō.”



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

A Dutchman escorts the procession of male and female camels handled by two Arabian attendants in handsomely patterned clothes. At upper left is the Dutch word kameel, and the term is defined in Japanese to the left. At upper right is a detailed account of the physical attributes of the animals, with the heading “Camels brought over by the Dutch.”



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

In Yokohama prints, created to memorialize the arrival of foreigners in Japan in the mid-1850s, Americans were generally visualized in two different ways: either in fanciful representations of Native Americans, as seen here, or as elaborately garbed white aristocrats. Such stereotypes were created when artists, lacking direct experience of foreigners, relied on visual information through unreliable sources such as newspaper cartoons and other printed ephemera.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

Russian officer Nikolay Rezanov (1764–1807) stands in the port of Nagasaki. He faces a soldier at left, and his attendant, at right, holds a Russian flag. A yellow cartouche at upper left reads “Illustration of Russians who arrived at Nagasaki in the ninth month of the first year of the Bunka era [1804].”



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

The excitement generated by the public display of exotic foreign animals such as tigers, camels, and elephants was captured by artists in the port cities of Nagasaki and Yokohama.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

Recognized as the greatest actor of the nineteenth century, Danjūrō VII is depicted as Soga Gorō, one of the most popular roles of the Kabuki stage, who carries out revenge with his brother for the murder of his father. This design was created in the modern era, at a time when Japan was at war, and neither ukiyo-e prints nor Kabuki were as popular as they had been in previous eras. Tadamasa, who had studied under Torii Kiyotada (1875–1941), one of the last of the traditional actor-print artists, drew on the history of Kabuki’s heyday during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.


On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

To represent the “Musket Scene” from the first scene of Act V of the Kabuki play The Treasury of the Royal Retainers (Kanadehon Chūshingura), the artist presents a close-up of the actor as Hayano Kanpei, a retainer of En’ya Hangan. In the play, the circumstances surrounding Hangan’s death sentence leads to a complex revenge story that has fascinated generations of Kabuki fans. The print captures the emotions of a samurai who feels guilt for not being at his master’s side at a crucial moment because he was meeting with his lover, Okaru.


On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

This triptych encapsulates what happens when cultures meet and artists try to capture the collision of indigenous and imported fashions. A Western woman in a capacious skirt, cape, and bonnet plays the Japanese children’s game of battledores (a forerunner of badminton) with an elegantly dressed Japanese townswoman. Merchants in top hats get on with business as Japanese, Chinese, and Middle Eastern servants do the manual lifting. The Japanese were shocked (but also clearly fascinated) by the dress and behavior of American women and, more generally, by the relations between Western men and women, which differed greatly from Japanese norms.


On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

In 1801 Hokusai provided a frontispiece to an album by the ukiyo-e master Chôbunsai Eishi (1756–1829), who elegantly portrayed thirty-six female poets. The frontispiece reveals the lyricism typical of Hokusai's Sôri period, early in his career. The signature reads Gakyôjin Hokusai zu ("painted by the madman of painting, Hokusai").


On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

The thirty-six poets selected by critic Fujiwara Kintô (966–1041) for particular veneration were a popular subject in all genre in the Edo period. Eishi's version pairing the poems with vividly colored imaginary court scenes creates a correspondence between the Heian period (794–1185) taste for elegance and sophistication and the height of fin-de-siècle fashion.


On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

In this dramatic composition, the whitened face of the actor Nakamura Nakazō II (1759–1796) with bold red stripes of make-up fills a large part of the compositional space. His costume’s abstract patterning contributes to the powerful effect. Nakazō’s crossed eyes indicate a climactic moment in the Kabuki drama, when the actor knots his energy and movements into a frozen pose called a mie. Over his shoulder he wields a white umbrella that becomes a crucial prop in the “carriage-stopping” episode of the iconic play Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy (Sugawara denju tenarai kagami). This print and the one next to it commemorate a performance held in the seventh month of 1796 at the Miyako theater in Edo.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

This print and the one alongside it brilliantly encapsulate Kunimasa’s genius at capturing the essentials of a Kabuki actor’s facial features and the essence of his stage persona. The two extremes of Kabuki roles are represented: the soft, gentle, and feminine features of Iwai Kumesaburō I (1776–1847) as the wife of a samurai retainer here, and the masculine bravado, corpulent strength, and fierceness of Nakamura Nakazō II (1759–1796) as Matsuōmaru.



The two prints are thought to commemorate different scenes from the same production of Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy (Sugawara denju tenarai kagami), a favorite of the Kabuki repertory, held in the seventh month of 1796, at the Miyako theater in Edo.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

This dynamic double-bust portrait against a dark gray mica background provides a study in contrasting personality types. The scowling character on the right, known derisively as the “Dried Codfish” Bōdara Chōzaemon and played by Nakajima Wadaemon, is shown dressing down the “Homeless Boatman” Gon, played by Nakamura Konozō. The scene comes from A Medley of Tales of Revenge (Katakiuchi noriai-banashi), a play staged at the Kiri Theater in Edo in the fifth month of 1794, when the artist produced many of his “large-head portraits” (ōkubi-e). Tōshūsai Sharaku was producing prints for three different theaters simultaneously—testimony not only to the popularity of his designs at the time but also to the power of his publisher, Tsutaya Jūzaburō.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

This is one of eleven extraordinary portraits on mica background commemorating actors in Flowering Irises: A Soga Vendetta of the Bunroku Era (Hana ayame: Bunroku Soga), performed in the fifth month (when irises bloom) of 1794, at the Miyako Theater in Edo. The vendetta play is based on a twelfth-century tale about the Ishii brothers, who plan for decades to avenge the death of their murdered father. The firmly clenched fist, tight-lipped mouth, and hopeful gaze of the actor Ōtani Tokuji I (1756–1807) as Sodesuke, a manservant in the retinue of the brothers, express the character’s loyalty and determination. By spring of the next year, for reasons not clear, Sharaku retired from ukiyo-e design, after only a little more than ten months of activity.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

Sharaku’s skill as a portraitist lay in his ability to capture both the features and the mood of the actor in a simple, almost caricaturish, manner that conveys great emotive power. For instance, even without knowing the plot of the play, one might sense that this samurai is powerless, through his hunched shoulders, gently clasped hands inside his sleeves, slightly unkempt hair, and look of resignation. Ichikawa Yaozō III (1747–1818) played the role of a masterless samurai supporting the plot of two brothers to avenge their father in a performance of Flowering Irises: A Soga Vendetta for the Bunroku Era (Hana ayame: Bunroku Soga) that took place in the fifth month of 1794—the same production represented in the print nearby.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

Sharaku’s lasting fame is due to the success of twenty-eight “large-head portraits” (ōkubi-e) with mica backgrounds, all created in early 1794, three of which are displayed nearby. Yet the artist followed up that effort with thirty-eight full-length portraits inspired by Kabuki performances of the seventh and eighth months of the same year. Some are large-format ōban, as here; others are in narrower formats. For reasons still unclear, by early the next year he would cease making prints altogether. Here, we see Ichikawa Yaozō (1747–1818) play the popular stock character Fuwa no Banzaemon—with an unshaven pate indicating he has fallen on bad times—as he receives a sword from the monk Kosodate Kannonbō, who had helped steal it from a rival.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

Emu, a courtesan of the Matsuya brothel, is shown cross-dressed as a cormorant fisherman for a costume parade held in the Shimanouchi district of Osaka. Standing above a pair of cormorants, she holds the type of a torch that would have been used at night to attract fish, which would then be temporarily caught by the birds. The long necks of the cormorants were tied so that could not fully swallow the fish they caught, allowing the fishermen to retrieve the catch. The headgear, costume, and straw apron (koshi mino) are based on a theatrical adaptation of an actual fisherman’s outfit, as used for the Noh play Cormorant Fisherman (Ukai), which is still performed to this day.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

The courtesan Ei of the Nakamoriken Brothel in the Shimanouchi pleasure quarters is shown holding a stem of peonies as she participates in a costume parade dressed as Lady Huayang, the concubine of the first Qin emperor of ancient China. Both figures appear as fictional characters in the Noh play The Kan’yō Palace (Kan’yōkyū). As related in the play, the emperor was about to be attacked by a pair of would-be assassins but pleaded with them to have one last chance to hear his favorite concubine Huayang (Japanese: Kayō) play the koto. They acceded to his request, but were lulled to sleep by the soothing koto music, enabling the emperor to kill both attackers. A companion print, known from other collections, shows the courtesan Konami participating in the parade cross-dressed as the Chinese emperor.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

A courtesan of the Kyōki Brothel of the Shimanouchi unofficial pleasure quarters in Osaka is dressed as Shizuka Gozen (1165–1211), a famous shirabyōshi (female court dancer) of the twelfth century who became the mistress of the warlord Minamoto no Yoshitsune. Shizuka featured prominently in the martial epic The Tale of the Heike as well as in countless theatrical renderings over the centuries. The costume of shirabyōshi entertainers, including a male courtier’s cap and ritual sword, was part of a provocative, convention-breaking cross-dressing of entertainers that came into popularity in the early medieval court and remained popular through early modern times in Japan at all levels of society.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

The courtesan Konami of the Kurahashiya Brothel in Osaka has draped a feather cloak over her shoulders and dons a glittering floral crown. She holds a pair of drumsticks, for she is serving as a percussionist on a float that carries the first group of musicians (saki-bayashi) leading a costume parade in the Shinmachi licensed quarter. Such parades were held each year in the late summer in the early nineteenth century. Her garb recalls the legend of Hagoromo, a folktale also turned into a Noh play, that relates the story of a fisherman who finds the magical feather cloak of a tennin (an angel-like celestial spirit) hanging on the bough of a tree and requests her to dance for him before he returns it.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

The courtesan Hanatsuru of the Higashi Ōgiya Brothel is elaborately garbed as Princess of the Dragon Palace (Ryūgū Otohime), for a costume parade that was held in the summer of 1822 in the Shinmachi licensed quarters in Osaka. Her crown is shaped like a coiled dragon, she grasps a fan in one hand, and her fabulous robes are decorated with a motif of waves, coral and magic jewels. Usually referred to as the Dragon Princess, Otohime is one of the protagonists in the popular legend of Urashima Tarō, a young fisherman. The Dragon Princess was also featured in Bugaku dance performances in a similar costume.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

The courtesan Kotozuru from the Tsuruya Brothel in Osaka is costumed in a male courtier’s cap and capacious robes associated with the cross-dressed female entertainers who took clients out in boats at Asazuma on the eastern shore of Lake Biwa. This print is from a series inspired by the summertime costume parades that were held annually in the Shinmachi brothel district of Osaka, created by the Edo-based artist Shigenobu. Both Shinmachi, Osaka’s government-sanctioned brothel district, and Shimanouchi, a large unlicensed district to the southwest, hosted costume parades featuring teahouse waitresses, geiko (geisha), and courtesans performing skits or pantomimes of well-known figures (both female and male) from Japanese legend, literature, popular theater, and contemporary society.

On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

Based on Tōshūsai Sharaku’s famous image of the Kabuki actor Ōtani Oniji III as Yakko Edobei (on display in the case at right), this image is cropped to place emphasis on the subject’s intense facial expression rather than his hands. Behind the abstracted latticework is the partly obscured figure of an onnagata (a male actor who performs women’s roles) playing a courtesan. The striped patterning evokes Edo fashion sensibilities but is a product of the artist’s own imagination, here combined with other elements derived from images of an ukiyo-e coloring book that he had found.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

Shimomura employs crisscross latticework (seen in several other prints in the Oriental Masterprints series displayed nearby) as a pictorial device to evoke the setting of the Yoshiwara red-light district, where courtesans, seated behind similar barriers, awaited their clients. Here, a courtesan, identifiable by her array of hairpins, is being embraced by a male client. In this print and throughout the series, the artist intended to make the viewer aware of, and grapple with, stereotypes of “Oriental” art.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

The artist has created a three-quarter view of an actor whose white made-up face stands in stark contrast to the deep blue background, made with ink bamboo. To Edo-period Kabuki and ukiyo-e print buffs, the image evokes the profile of the famous actor Sawamura Sōjūrō III (1753–1801) performing a role that required a wig with bushy hair, such as that of Monk Seigen, who appears in various plays as a rebellious abbot of Kiyomizudera Temple in Kyoto and becomes infatuated with Princess Sakura.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

Shimomura has again taken inspiration from traditional ukiyo-e depictions of villainous characters from Kabuki theater. The grimacing actor, who rolls up his sleeve to confront a rival at a climactic moment of a vendetta play, was a familiar motif of ukiyo-e. His horizontal striped costume stands out against the verticals of the bamboo latticework.



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

The visage of a Kabuki actor in red- and blue-striped kumadori makeup is seen between a pair of partly opened lattice doors. The silhouette of the rest of his bulky costume and courtier’s cap suggest his fierce presence. Although we do not know exactly which earlier ukiyo-e print the artist was inspired by, the distinctive features and hat indicate that the actor is Utaemon Nakamura III (1778–1838) in the role of Katō Masakiyo, a character based on the famous historical warrior Katō Kiyomasa (1562–1611).



On view from August 28–December 6, 2021

On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

Two women from a samurai household—one peering through a telescope—are on an outing. We do not know what she gazes at, but perhaps it is a case of reverse voyeurism, and she espies a young man who has caught her fancy. The older woman beside her, holding a parasol, appears amused by the unladylike behavior. The print belongs to the series Seven Fashionable Bad Habits, from which only this and one other composition are known. Signed “Kako,” this rare print (only three impressions appear to have survived) dates to a period when the artist was known for his depictions of elegant young women with elongated oval faces.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

A high-ranking courtesan in a striking black outer robe with a peacock motif over a multicolored undergarment stands before a koto (thirteen-string zither). Her obi sash is tied in front, the usual practice for courtesans—representing the ability to disrobe without fuss for a client.



Utagawa Toyoharu, founder of the Utagawa school of Ukiyo-e, produced both deluxe paintings—as seen here—and designs for prints. Shokusanjin, one of the foremost literary arbiters of his era, inscribed the poem to the left of the figure some years after the painting was made, a witty verse full of clever wordplay and references to centuries-old classical literature and the Shinto “patron deity” of the pleasure quarters.



On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

A young woman, her face partly hidden by a bamboo blind, checks her makeup in a pocket mirror. In this series Utamaro draws on the popular conceit in East Asian poetry, painting, and print design of a constellation of eight views—usually referring to famous natural scenery, but here refocused on waitresses at eight popular tea stalls in Edo. The accompanying seventeen-syllable verse associates this sitter with the Nijūken (Twenty-mat) stall in the Asakusa district:



Mō hito ni

shigaramu Tsuta no

Nijūken



Her admirers cling to

Tsuta, the “Ivy” maiden,

of Nijūken tea stall.



—Trans. John T. Carpenter



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

A magnificently attired woman pauses to adjust one of the hairpins keeping in place her double-bunned hyōgo-mage (a hairstyle that originated with Hyōgo courtesans in western Japan). Her array of hair ornaments and elaborate layers of richly colored robes declare her to be an oiran, or a highly ranked courtesan of the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters. The inscription in the space above her is a sermon by the Rinzai Zen priest Takuan Sōhō (1573–1645):



Buddha tried to sell religious law;

Our founding patriarch [Bodhidharma]

tried to sell the Buddha;

We [. . .] try to sell our founding patriarch.

And you sell your five-foot-tall body

to allay the passions of mankind. [. . .]

“Willows are green, and flowers crimson”

—Trans. John T. Carpenter



On view from December 18, 2021–April 24, 2022

Utamaro’s lasting fame was established with “large-head pictures” (ōkubi-e) such as this one, an immensely popular image of a woman caught in a moment of melancholy reflection on love. Portrayed against a pink mica background, the sitter has shaved eyebrows and blackened teeth that identify her as a married or “kept” woman. Each of the six prints in the series depicts a psychological manifestation of romantic love. In earlier portrait series, Utamaro had presented himself as a “physiognomist” par excellence of women, able to capture a state of mind by representing the physical characteristics of a person’s facial expressions.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

This spectacular triptych captures the implausible circumstances of a courtesan in full regalia and her entirely female entourage disembarking from a boat that has just traversed a river, while a palanquin has been prepared to continue the journey. The setting is spring, with cherry blossoms at their peak, and Mount Fuji appears in the distant background. The handsome young male falconer heading the procession may be the woman’s patron, who has funded a journey to his home province. Utamaro, known as the portraitist par excellence of courtesans, has imagined what the procession of a daimyo (feudal lord) would look like if all the retainers, porters, flagbearers, and other attendants switched gender. Ukiyo-e artists and their audiences enjoyed this kind of visual spoofing.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

A woman attempts to strum a shamisen—the three-stringed instrument popular in the pleasure quarters and on the Kabuki stage of the Edo period—while her little son affectionately embraces her. This print belongs to a series showing contemporary women and children likened to Noh plays based on seven legendary episodes in the life of the ninth-century poetess Ono no Komachi. In the play Sekidera Komachi, the elderly Komachi is staying at a hut near Sekidera Temple in Ōtsu City, northeast of Kyoto, and is visited by two monks and a child who want to learn about poetry, and the child dances to gagaku (ancient court music); the artist may have wanted viewers to link this picture to that story. This rare print is better known from early twentieth-century facsimile reproductions.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

Two women, one with a little boy on her back, examine the potted plants a street vendor has for sale. On offer are a potted plum bonsai and adonis flowers (fukujusō) in variously shaped pots, so we know the setting is the New Year. The lantern mount behind the vendor, decorated with paper and plant streamers, also signals the beginning of spring. This print belongs to a series of twenty designs depicting groups of people from various classes wearing elegant street clothes. Kiyonaga, in his trademark style, presents young women as impossibly tall and with highly stylized features, dressed in fashions of the day.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

In early modern times, it was customary for wealthy families in the Ryūkyū Kingdom (present-day Okinawa) to select young sons to train in various arts such as painting, calligraphy, dance, and music. They were also expected to be available to dress as women and perform dances or play musical instruments in official processions (sankin kōtai) to the military capital of Edo, on the main island of Japan. Referred to as gakudoji (boy performers), they often appear in handscrolls depicting the elaborate retinues of feudal lords, sometimes mounted on elaborately saddled horses, or with an older male attendant holding a parasol, as here. Toyohiro designed several other prints on this theme.



On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021

The Kabuki play Mount Imo and Mount Se: An Exemplary Tale of Womanly Virtue (Imoseyama onna teikin), originally based on a puppet play, is set in ancient Japan when the Soga clan served as regents to the emperor. Two children, Hinadori and Koganosuke, of rival court families, are held hostage under orders from the tyrant Soga no Iruka to ensure their families do not revolt. The children fall in love, but rather than create conflicts for their families they each vow to die by suicide. When the parents learn of their plans, they resolve to cooperate to overthrow Iruka. Here Koganosuke and his father Kiyozumi are shown; a companion sheet on the left would have shown Hinadori and her mother Sadaka.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

This dramatic bust portrait of Onoe Fujaku III (1793–1831) captures the Osaka-based actor as a samurai garbed in a brilliant purple surcoat with paulownia crests, covering armor that has a breastplate in the form of a demon mask with piercing eyes. Fujaku is shown in a role based on the real-life daimyo Kobayakawa Takakage (1533–1597), who became an ally of the great warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Theater fans enjoyed the clever and playful ways in which Kabuki playwrights rewrote history.



The little known artist Seiyōsai Shunshi was said to have studied under Shunkōsai Hokushū, and all of his known works are actor portraits. We can assume that, like many Osaka print artists, he was a wealthy Kabuki fan who created print designs as an avocation, not profession.



On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

The popular Kabuki role of Yari no Gonza (who is depicted on the left, beneath the red lantern with the actors’ names and roles) is based on a character of the same name from a puppet play written by Chikamatsu Monzaemon in 1717, over a century before the performance represented here. Chikamatsu’s play recounted the real-life events of the day of the killing of a pair of adulterous lovers by the woman’s jealous husband. The Kabuki adaptation, Rumors of a Scandal on the Fushimi Road (Fushimi-kaidō uwasa no akatsuki), which inspired this print, was performed at the Naka Theater in the eighth month of 1824.

On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021

The Kabuki actor Arashi Tokusaburō III (later known as Arashi Rikan III, 1812–1863) achieved great renown for his performances as young women (waka-onnagata). Here he is represented in the role of the onnadate (chivalrous woman) Ohashi, who defended the weak and oppressed against abusive samurai, and who were popularized in literature and on the Kabuki stage as champions of the townspeople. The hokku (17-syllable poem), by the actor himself, refers to the tachibana (mandarin orange blossom) crest used by this family of actors:

Tachibana no
kaori wa yomo ni
negaunari

We pray that the fragrance
of mandarin orange blossoms
will spread in all directions.

(Trans. John T. Carpenter)

On view June 5, 2021–August 8, 2021