TAB Event - "Considering Edo Painting" Exhibition

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At Yamatane Museum of Art
Media: Painting

The Yamatane Museum of Art is familiar to many as a museum specializing in modern and contemporary Nihonga works, but it is less well known that the museum is also home to numerous examples of Edo period paintings. In March 2008 the Yamatane’s Court Ladies Enjoying Wayside Chrysanthemums, by Iwasa Matabei, was designated an Important Cultural Property by the Japanese government. In commemoration of this honor, the 6th in the series of special exhibitions commemorating the opening of the new Yamatane Museum of Art will introduce the museum’s Edo period painting holdings, including works that have rarely been put on public display.

During the Edo period and its almost three centuries of peace in Japan, Japanese culture, which had largely developed around the aristocracy and military elite up until that time, spread rapidly throughout the commoner classes. Art forms of great diversity and depth developed. Made up of 66 works, this exhibition boasts two paintings designated as Important Cultural Properties, three Important Art Objects, and examples by all of the major Edo period painting schools and painters. The group of works by Rimpa painters, such as Sakai Hoitsu’s Autumn Plants and Quail (Important Art Object), are of particular note. The story is told of how the Yamatane’s founder, Taneji Yamazaki, was inspired to collect art works when he was a young apprentice and was struck by the beauty of Hoitsu’s painting of a deep orange, richly ripe persimmon. This episode indicates the depths of Yamazaki’s interest in Hoitsu.

This exhibition features works that trace the entire history of Edo period painting. It includes Tosa school works attributed to Tosa Mitsuyoshi; a painting by Iwasa Matabei, said to be the founder of the ukiyo-e style, works by such Rimpa artists as Tawaraya Sotatsu and Sakai Hoitsu; a painting by Kano Tsunenobu representing the official painting school; a work attributed to the Maruyama-Shijo school artist Nagasawa Rosetsu; paintings by the literati artist Ike no Taiga, and examples of the revival Yamato-e school artist Reizei Tamechika.

[Image: Matabei Iwasa, "Court Ladies Enjoying Wayside Chrysanthemums"]

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