Exhibition/event has ended.
Museum of Medicinal Herbs - Morino-Kyuyakuen Garden and Illustrated Plants in the Edo Period
LIXIL Gallery 1 & 2
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Kampo (herbal medicine) is a familiar part of everyday life in Japan. Its roots are found in the honzo-gaku (herbology), which developed in the Edo period (1603-1868). In late Edo, herbs used in medicines became so precious that the Shogunate adopted a policy of domestic cultivation. As evidenced by the many herbals and illustrated plants published at the time, interest among people in medicinal herbs was strong. It was also in this period that research expanded from medicinal herbs to plants in general, and that public interest in plants grew. Around this time, a man deeply knowledgeable about medicinal herbs appeared—the Morino family’s first generation Tosuke, Tosuke Michisada (pseudonym: Saikaku). Saikaku, who also worked on behalf of the Shogunate’s domestic cultivation policy, opened Japan’s oldest extant private herbal garden, “Morino-Kyuyakuen Garden” (Uda, Nara prefecture). In his late years, he completed the Matsuyama-honzo (“Matsuyama Herbal”), containing some 1,000 brightly colored illustrations of plants depicted with a botanist’s eye for detail. Saikaku’s wisdom of learning from the past to build for the future still lives today in this herbal garden.
This exhibition, while keeping a focus on “medicinal herbs,” looks at Morino-Kyuyakuen Garden, which faithfully carries on Saikaku’s thinking. Displayed along with photographs and film are about 90 important botanical illustrations created in the Edo period and in the subsequent era, when herbology was reborn as modern botany. Lixil Gallery hopes that through these items viewers will feel the passionate interest that people long ago held in plants and medicinal herbs.
This exhibition, while keeping a focus on “medicinal herbs,” looks at Morino-Kyuyakuen Garden, which faithfully carries on Saikaku’s thinking. Displayed along with photographs and film are about 90 important botanical illustrations created in the Edo period and in the subsequent era, when herbology was reborn as modern botany. Lixil Gallery hopes that through these items viewers will feel the passionate interest that people long ago held in plants and medicinal herbs.
Schedule | Mar 3 (Thu) 2016-May 21 (Sat) 2016 Opening Hours Information
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| Fee | Free | ||||||
| Venue | LIXIL Gallery 1 & 2 https://www.livingculture.lixil/en/gallery/  | ||||||
| Location | 2F LIXIL:Ginza Tokyo Tatemono Kyobashi Bldg., 3-6-18 Kyobashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0031 | ||||||
| Access | 1 minute walk from exit 2 at Kyobashi Station on the Ginza line, 3 minute walk from exit 6 at Ginza-itchome Station on the Yurakucho line, 3 minute walk from exit A4 at Takaracho Station on the Toei Asakusa line. | ||||||
| Phone | 03-5250-6530 | ||||||
| Related images | Click on the image to enlarge it  |
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