The term hakubyō means “white drawing” and refers to a style of monochrome image that uses almost exclusively ink linework. This developed out of a tradition of East Asian painting that emphasizes the beauty of paper and line. In Japan, well known works such as the National Treasure Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) employ great variation in brushwork and ink gradation, while other hakubyō works that emerged from the refined aesthetics of court culture employ fine, uniform lines in a fluid hand. These latter works form a genre known as hakubyō Yamato-e, or Japanese-style monochrome painting, which reached its pinnacle in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). As the Kamakura period came to an end, an increasing number of more intimate works with looser linework began to be made, leading to a new era of monochrome painting.

Tale of the Princess (Chūgū monogatari)

Arhats, called rakan in Japanese, are sage-like high priests of Buddhism who were believed to have lived in ancient India. They were first pictorialized in China and their images later imported to Japan, where Japanese depictions usually maintain a distinctive, Chinese-influenced style. Arhats and their images have been worshiped in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), however their popularity increased dramatically in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) along with the growing influence of Zen Buddhism.
The early Chinese and Japanese painters of arhats and their audiences must have believed these images to resemble actual Buddhist elders in ancient India. Today, they are perhaps more striking for their strange, eccentric, and exoticized appearances. The gap between the real historical sages and their imaginative portrayal in painting makes this a truly fascinating subject of East Asian Buddhist art.

Important Cultural Property
Sixteen Arhats
Dairen-ji Temple, Shiga

During the summer season, the Medieval Paintings gallery presents a selection of decorated fan paintings. Fans have played an important role in the lives of Japanese people since ancient times. Used casually in daily life for cooling off, fans are also employed in many ritual and formal occasions and continue to serve a variety of functions today. The foldable surface of a fan provides a dynamic and compact surface for a rich variety of painting subjects, and over time artists and craftsmen produced large numbers of luxury fans decorated with beautiful paintings that served as sophisticated objects of gift exchange in elite society. In addition to paintings, Zen priests and other cultured elites inscribed poetic verses on fans and exchanged them as a way of deepening relationships. Brushed by a diverse range of artists, the fans on view provide an invaluable window into the world of medieval Japanese painting.

Important Cultural Property
Fan with Tale of Calligrapher Wang Xizhi
Inscription by Daigaku Shūsū and Ishō Tokugan; painting by Josetsu
Kyoto National Museum

Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674) was born in Kyoto as the grandson of the virtuosic sixteenth-century master, Kano Eitoku (1543–1590). At age sixteen he became the official painter in attendance (goyō eshi) to the Tokugawa shogun and began to position himself as the pillar of the Kano house of painters. His elegant and sophisticated painting style marked a divergence from previous Kano painters, not only setting a new standard for his followers but also influencing the broader trajectory of the many diverse schools of painting that flourished in the Edo period (1615–1868).
As the official painter of the realm in close proximity to the center of power in Edo, Tan’yū would later be characterized by the art historian Okakura Tenshin as the “Ieyasu of the art world,” an allusion to the first Tokugawa shogun. This exhibition presents highlights of Tan’yū’s career, displayed in the city of his birth, Kyoto.

Important Cultural Property
Pine Trees of the Four Seasons (Left Screen)
By Kano Tan’yū
Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto

The lotus has long been a favored motif in Chinese painting. Unstained by the muddy waters of its surroundings, the flower symbolizes purity and the ideal of freedom from worldly affairs. In his poetic essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” the eleventh-century philosopher Zhou Dunyi famously contrasted the nobility of the peony and the reclusiveness of the chrysanthemum with the purity of the lotus, praising it as “gentleman among flowers.” In Buddhism also, the lotus blossoms in the Pure Land and adorns images of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This exhibition features a wide variety of Chinese paintings that portray this most virtuous and sacred of flowers. We hope that you take your time to admire each work as you decipher the meaning of the lotus.

Important Cultural Property
Egrets in a Lotus Pond (Right Scroll)
Kyoto National Museum

From ancient times through the Edo period (1615–1868), almost all subjects of Japanese sculpture were religious in nature. After Buddhism was introduced to Japan and became firmly established in the seventh century, the production of Buddhist statues flourished. Buddhist deities and their images often have origins in South Asia or Central Asia, and they were usually transmitted to Japan by way of China, bringing with them a complex array of foreign influences.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese sculpture is its use of wood as a primary material. Various modes of carving and other techniques—including joint-block construction (yosegi-zukuri) and inlaid crystal eyes—were developed in Japan to create these wood images.
Over time, the repeated introduction of new images from the Asian continent contributed to further stylistic transformations and innovations in Japan. The Japanese Buddhist sculptures on view here reflect various styles of different historical periods.

Thousand-Armed Kannon (Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteśvara) in Incense Container-Shaped Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

The Chūson-ji Sutras comprise two sets of Buddhist scriptures that were dedicated by members of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan and offered to Chūson-ji Temple in Hiraizumi in the twelfth century. Each set is composed of more than 5,000 volumes. The “Kiyohira Sutras” were commissioned by the first patriarch of the Ōshū Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056–1128) and are transcribed in gold and silver characters on indigo-dyed paper. These were supplemented by the “Hidehira Sutras,” which used only gold characters and were sponsored by the third clan chieftain Fujiwara no Hidehira (?–1187).
The Shingon Buddhist temple Hinōsan Kanshin-ji in Kawachinagano City preserves 216 volumes of Chūson-ji Sutras. Enjoy the glimmering brilliance of these sublimely decorated sutras that convey the former glory and faith of the Ōshū Fujiwara.

Important Cultural Property
The Method of Mañjuśrīʼs Fundamental Single-Word Dhāraṇī (Kiyohira Sutra)
Vow by Fujiwara no Kiyohira
Kanshin-ji Temple, Osaka

Water is a central motif in visual cultures throughout the world. Falling from the heavens as rain or snow, the life-giving element flows into rivers and seeps underground, allowing us to quench our thirst and irrigate the crops that sustain life. The beauty of its everchanging form responds to the passage of time and the shape of its vessel. As the substance of majestic oceans and rivers, it inspires the artistic creation of sublime landscape paintings and designs rich in symbolic resonance.
Flowing, swirling, splashing – this exhibition introduces a variety of styles for representing water as a motif in the designs of dyed and woven Japanese textiles. The textiles on display highlight designs that incorporate the refreshing atmosphere of the waterside and abstracted designs of blue ocean waves.

Hitoe (Unlined Kimono) with Sweetfish and Wild Pinks in the Rainy Season
Kyoto National Museum

The Muromachi period (1392–1573) could be called the cradle of Japanese civilization as we know it today. The culture of the nobility, which flourished in Kyoto during the Heian period (794–1185), blended together with the samurai culture originating in eastern Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the latest cultural developments from continental Asia. Following the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, Japan entered an eventful 240 years marked by the strife-torn Nanbokuchō period (1333–1392), during which there were two rival imperial courts; the stable rule of the Muromachi shogunate; and the chaos of prolonged civil war.
In this section, we present cast metalwork from this formative period in the form of mirrors and chime-like percussive instruments called kei (Ch: bianqing). In addition to relics of the aristocratic Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures of Kyoto, the exhibition features masterworks from regions throughout Japan that advanced while Kyoto fell into decline during the civil wars of the Nanbokuchō through Momoyama periods.

National Treasure
Mirror with Pines, Bamboo, and Pair of Cranes, from the Sacred Treasures of Asuka Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, ceremonial feasts called naorai are held following the completion of rituals, whereupon the food and drink offerings presented to the kami are consumed by divine spirits and the living alike. In Buddhism also, offerings of food and drink are made to Buddhist deities as part of ritual services, after which lay parishioners and other faithful dine together with the officiating priests. In some Zen monasteries, ritual offerings of meals and tea to a temple’s founder are followed by the consumption of those same offerings.
Beautiful tableware made of lacquer is an indispensable part of these ritualized meals. Likewise, the enjoyment of a meal and the pouring of drinks can be seen wherever people gather, whether at a wedding or funeral, seasonal festivities like the viewing of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, or even a day out at the theater. Take the time to revel in Japan’s rich culture of feasting through the lacquerware that transformed festive dining into sublime events.

Portable Picnic Case with Gagaku Court Music Designs
Kyoto National Museum

The term hakubyō means “white drawing” and refers to a style of monochrome image that uses almost exclusively ink linework. This developed out of a tradition of East Asian painting that emphasizes the beauty of paper and line. In Japan, well known works such as the National Treasure Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) employ great variation in brushwork and ink gradation, while other hakubyō works that emerged from the refined aesthetics of court culture employ fine, uniform lines in a fluid hand. These latter works form a genre known as hakubyō Yamato-e, or Japanese-style monochrome painting, which reached its pinnacle in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). As the Kamakura period came to an end, an increasing number of more intimate works with looser linework began to be made, leading to a new era of monochrome painting.

Tale of the Princess (Chūgū monogatari)

Arhats, called rakan in Japanese, are sage-like high priests of Buddhism who were believed to have lived in ancient India. They were first pictorialized in China and their images later imported to Japan, where Japanese depictions usually maintain a distinctive, Chinese-influenced style. Arhats and their images have been worshiped in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), however their popularity increased dramatically in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) along with the growing influence of Zen Buddhism.
The early Chinese and Japanese painters of arhats and their audiences must have believed these images to resemble actual Buddhist elders in ancient India. Today, they are perhaps more striking for their strange, eccentric, and exoticized appearances. The gap between the real historical sages and their imaginative portrayal in painting makes this a truly fascinating subject of East Asian Buddhist art.

Important Cultural Property
Sixteen Arhats
Dairen-ji Temple, Shiga

During the summer season, the Medieval Paintings gallery presents a selection of decorated fan paintings. Fans have played an important role in the lives of Japanese people since ancient times. Used casually in daily life for cooling off, fans are also employed in many ritual and formal occasions and continue to serve a variety of functions today. The foldable surface of a fan provides a dynamic and compact surface for a rich variety of painting subjects, and over time artists and craftsmen produced large numbers of luxury fans decorated with beautiful paintings that served as sophisticated objects of gift exchange in elite society. In addition to paintings, Zen priests and other cultured elites inscribed poetic verses on fans and exchanged them as a way of deepening relationships. Brushed by a diverse range of artists, the fans on view provide an invaluable window into the world of medieval Japanese painting.

Important Cultural Property
Fan with Tale of Calligrapher Wang Xizhi
Inscription by Daigaku Shūsū and Ishō Tokugan; painting by Josetsu
Kyoto National Museum

Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674) was born in Kyoto as the grandson of the virtuosic sixteenth-century master, Kano Eitoku (1543–1590). At age sixteen he became the official painter in attendance (goyō eshi) to the Tokugawa shogun and began to position himself as the pillar of the Kano house of painters. His elegant and sophisticated painting style marked a divergence from previous Kano painters, not only setting a new standard for his followers but also influencing the broader trajectory of the many diverse schools of painting that flourished in the Edo period (1615–1868).
As the official painter of the realm in close proximity to the center of power in Edo, Tan’yū would later be characterized by the art historian Okakura Tenshin as the “Ieyasu of the art world,” an allusion to the first Tokugawa shogun. This exhibition presents highlights of Tan’yū’s career, displayed in the city of his birth, Kyoto.

Important Cultural Property
Pine Trees of the Four Seasons (Left Screen)
By Kano Tan’yū
Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto

The lotus has long been a favored motif in Chinese painting. Unstained by the muddy waters of its surroundings, the flower symbolizes purity and the ideal of freedom from worldly affairs. In his poetic essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” the eleventh-century philosopher Zhou Dunyi famously contrasted the nobility of the peony and the reclusiveness of the chrysanthemum with the purity of the lotus, praising it as “gentleman among flowers.” In Buddhism also, the lotus blossoms in the Pure Land and adorns images of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This exhibition features a wide variety of Chinese paintings that portray this most virtuous and sacred of flowers. We hope that you take your time to admire each work as you decipher the meaning of the lotus.

Important Cultural Property
Egrets in a Lotus Pond (Right Scroll)
Kyoto National Museum

From ancient times through the Edo period (1615–1868), almost all subjects of Japanese sculpture were religious in nature. After Buddhism was introduced to Japan and became firmly established in the seventh century, the production of Buddhist statues flourished. Buddhist deities and their images often have origins in South Asia or Central Asia, and they were usually transmitted to Japan by way of China, bringing with them a complex array of foreign influences.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese sculpture is its use of wood as a primary material. Various modes of carving and other techniques—including joint-block construction (yosegi-zukuri) and inlaid crystal eyes—were developed in Japan to create these wood images.
Over time, the repeated introduction of new images from the Asian continent contributed to further stylistic transformations and innovations in Japan. The Japanese Buddhist sculptures on view here reflect various styles of different historical periods.

Thousand-Armed Kannon (Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteśvara) in Incense Container-Shaped Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

The Chūson-ji Sutras comprise two sets of Buddhist scriptures that were dedicated by members of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan and offered to Chūson-ji Temple in Hiraizumi in the twelfth century. Each set is composed of more than 5,000 volumes. The “Kiyohira Sutras” were commissioned by the first patriarch of the Ōshū Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056–1128) and are transcribed in gold and silver characters on indigo-dyed paper. These were supplemented by the “Hidehira Sutras,” which used only gold characters and were sponsored by the third clan chieftain Fujiwara no Hidehira (?–1187).
The Shingon Buddhist temple Hinōsan Kanshin-ji in Kawachinagano City preserves 216 volumes of Chūson-ji Sutras. Enjoy the glimmering brilliance of these sublimely decorated sutras that convey the former glory and faith of the Ōshū Fujiwara.

Important Cultural Property
The Method of Mañjuśrīʼs Fundamental Single-Word Dhāraṇī (Kiyohira Sutra)
Vow by Fujiwara no Kiyohira
Kanshin-ji Temple, Osaka

Water is a central motif in visual cultures throughout the world. Falling from the heavens as rain or snow, the life-giving element flows into rivers and seeps underground, allowing us to quench our thirst and irrigate the crops that sustain life. The beauty of its everchanging form responds to the passage of time and the shape of its vessel. As the substance of majestic oceans and rivers, it inspires the artistic creation of sublime landscape paintings and designs rich in symbolic resonance.
Flowing, swirling, splashing – this exhibition introduces a variety of styles for representing water as a motif in the designs of dyed and woven Japanese textiles. The textiles on display highlight designs that incorporate the refreshing atmosphere of the waterside and abstracted designs of blue ocean waves.

Hitoe (Unlined Kimono) with Sweetfish and Wild Pinks in the Rainy Season
Kyoto National Museum

The Muromachi period (1392–1573) could be called the cradle of Japanese civilization as we know it today. The culture of the nobility, which flourished in Kyoto during the Heian period (794–1185), blended together with the samurai culture originating in eastern Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the latest cultural developments from continental Asia. Following the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, Japan entered an eventful 240 years marked by the strife-torn Nanbokuchō period (1333–1392), during which there were two rival imperial courts; the stable rule of the Muromachi shogunate; and the chaos of prolonged civil war.
In this section, we present cast metalwork from this formative period in the form of mirrors and chime-like percussive instruments called kei (Ch: bianqing). In addition to relics of the aristocratic Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures of Kyoto, the exhibition features masterworks from regions throughout Japan that advanced while Kyoto fell into decline during the civil wars of the Nanbokuchō through Momoyama periods.

National Treasure
Mirror with Pines, Bamboo, and Pair of Cranes, from the Sacred Treasures of Asuka Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, ceremonial feasts called naorai are held following the completion of rituals, whereupon the food and drink offerings presented to the kami are consumed by divine spirits and the living alike. In Buddhism also, offerings of food and drink are made to Buddhist deities as part of ritual services, after which lay parishioners and other faithful dine together with the officiating priests. In some Zen monasteries, ritual offerings of meals and tea to a temple’s founder are followed by the consumption of those same offerings.
Beautiful tableware made of lacquer is an indispensable part of these ritualized meals. Likewise, the enjoyment of a meal and the pouring of drinks can be seen wherever people gather, whether at a wedding or funeral, seasonal festivities like the viewing of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, or even a day out at the theater. Take the time to revel in Japan’s rich culture of feasting through the lacquerware that transformed festive dining into sublime events.

Portable Picnic Case with Gagaku Court Music Designs
Kyoto National Museum

The term hakubyō means “white drawing” and refers to a style of monochrome image that uses almost exclusively ink linework. This developed out of a tradition of East Asian painting that emphasizes the beauty of paper and line. In Japan, well known works such as the National Treasure Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) employ great variation in brushwork and ink gradation, while other hakubyō works that emerged from the refined aesthetics of court culture employ fine, uniform lines in a fluid hand. These latter works form a genre known as hakubyō Yamato-e, or Japanese-style monochrome painting, which reached its pinnacle in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). As the Kamakura period came to an end, an increasing number of more intimate works with looser linework began to be made, leading to a new era of monochrome painting.

Tale of the Princess (Chūgū monogatari)

Arhats, called rakan in Japanese, are sage-like high priests of Buddhism who were believed to have lived in ancient India. They were first pictorialized in China and their images later imported to Japan, where Japanese depictions usually maintain a distinctive, Chinese-influenced style. Arhats and their images have been worshiped in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), however their popularity increased dramatically in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) along with the growing influence of Zen Buddhism.
The early Chinese and Japanese painters of arhats and their audiences must have believed these images to resemble actual Buddhist elders in ancient India. Today, they are perhaps more striking for their strange, eccentric, and exoticized appearances. The gap between the real historical sages and their imaginative portrayal in painting makes this a truly fascinating subject of East Asian Buddhist art.

Important Cultural Property
Sixteen Arhats
Dairen-ji Temple, Shiga

During the summer season, the Medieval Paintings gallery presents a selection of decorated fan paintings. Fans have played an important role in the lives of Japanese people since ancient times. Used casually in daily life for cooling off, fans are also employed in many ritual and formal occasions and continue to serve a variety of functions today. The foldable surface of a fan provides a dynamic and compact surface for a rich variety of painting subjects, and over time artists and craftsmen produced large numbers of luxury fans decorated with beautiful paintings that served as sophisticated objects of gift exchange in elite society. In addition to paintings, Zen priests and other cultured elites inscribed poetic verses on fans and exchanged them as a way of deepening relationships. Brushed by a diverse range of artists, the fans on view provide an invaluable window into the world of medieval Japanese painting.

Important Cultural Property
Fan with Tale of Calligrapher Wang Xizhi
Inscription by Daigaku Shūsū and Ishō Tokugan; painting by Josetsu
Kyoto National Museum

Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674) was born in Kyoto as the grandson of the virtuosic sixteenth-century master, Kano Eitoku (1543–1590). At age sixteen he became the official painter in attendance (goyō eshi) to the Tokugawa shogun and began to position himself as the pillar of the Kano house of painters. His elegant and sophisticated painting style marked a divergence from previous Kano painters, not only setting a new standard for his followers but also influencing the broader trajectory of the many diverse schools of painting that flourished in the Edo period (1615–1868).
As the official painter of the realm in close proximity to the center of power in Edo, Tan’yū would later be characterized by the art historian Okakura Tenshin as the “Ieyasu of the art world,” an allusion to the first Tokugawa shogun. This exhibition presents highlights of Tan’yū’s career, displayed in the city of his birth, Kyoto.

Important Cultural Property
Pine Trees of the Four Seasons (Left Screen)
By Kano Tan’yū
Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto

The lotus has long been a favored motif in Chinese painting. Unstained by the muddy waters of its surroundings, the flower symbolizes purity and the ideal of freedom from worldly affairs. In his poetic essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” the eleventh-century philosopher Zhou Dunyi famously contrasted the nobility of the peony and the reclusiveness of the chrysanthemum with the purity of the lotus, praising it as “gentleman among flowers.” In Buddhism also, the lotus blossoms in the Pure Land and adorns images of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This exhibition features a wide variety of Chinese paintings that portray this most virtuous and sacred of flowers. We hope that you take your time to admire each work as you decipher the meaning of the lotus.

Important Cultural Property
Egrets in a Lotus Pond (Right Scroll)
Kyoto National Museum

From ancient times through the Edo period (1615–1868), almost all subjects of Japanese sculpture were religious in nature. After Buddhism was introduced to Japan and became firmly established in the seventh century, the production of Buddhist statues flourished. Buddhist deities and their images often have origins in South Asia or Central Asia, and they were usually transmitted to Japan by way of China, bringing with them a complex array of foreign influences.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese sculpture is its use of wood as a primary material. Various modes of carving and other techniques—including joint-block construction (yosegi-zukuri) and inlaid crystal eyes—were developed in Japan to create these wood images.
Over time, the repeated introduction of new images from the Asian continent contributed to further stylistic transformations and innovations in Japan. The Japanese Buddhist sculptures on view here reflect various styles of different historical periods.

Thousand-Armed Kannon (Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteśvara) in Incense Container-Shaped Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

The Chūson-ji Sutras comprise two sets of Buddhist scriptures that were dedicated by members of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan and offered to Chūson-ji Temple in Hiraizumi in the twelfth century. Each set is composed of more than 5,000 volumes. The “Kiyohira Sutras” were commissioned by the first patriarch of the Ōshū Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056–1128) and are transcribed in gold and silver characters on indigo-dyed paper. These were supplemented by the “Hidehira Sutras,” which used only gold characters and were sponsored by the third clan chieftain Fujiwara no Hidehira (?–1187).
The Shingon Buddhist temple Hinōsan Kanshin-ji in Kawachinagano City preserves 216 volumes of Chūson-ji Sutras. Enjoy the glimmering brilliance of these sublimely decorated sutras that convey the former glory and faith of the Ōshū Fujiwara.

Important Cultural Property
The Method of Mañjuśrīʼs Fundamental Single-Word Dhāraṇī (Kiyohira Sutra)
Vow by Fujiwara no Kiyohira
Kanshin-ji Temple, Osaka

Water is a central motif in visual cultures throughout the world. Falling from the heavens as rain or snow, the life-giving element flows into rivers and seeps underground, allowing us to quench our thirst and irrigate the crops that sustain life. The beauty of its everchanging form responds to the passage of time and the shape of its vessel. As the substance of majestic oceans and rivers, it inspires the artistic creation of sublime landscape paintings and designs rich in symbolic resonance.
Flowing, swirling, splashing – this exhibition introduces a variety of styles for representing water as a motif in the designs of dyed and woven Japanese textiles. The textiles on display highlight designs that incorporate the refreshing atmosphere of the waterside and abstracted designs of blue ocean waves.

Hitoe (Unlined Kimono) with Sweetfish and Wild Pinks in the Rainy Season
Kyoto National Museum

The Muromachi period (1392–1573) could be called the cradle of Japanese civilization as we know it today. The culture of the nobility, which flourished in Kyoto during the Heian period (794–1185), blended together with the samurai culture originating in eastern Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the latest cultural developments from continental Asia. Following the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, Japan entered an eventful 240 years marked by the strife-torn Nanbokuchō period (1333–1392), during which there were two rival imperial courts; the stable rule of the Muromachi shogunate; and the chaos of prolonged civil war.
In this section, we present cast metalwork from this formative period in the form of mirrors and chime-like percussive instruments called kei (Ch: bianqing). In addition to relics of the aristocratic Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures of Kyoto, the exhibition features masterworks from regions throughout Japan that advanced while Kyoto fell into decline during the civil wars of the Nanbokuchō through Momoyama periods.

National Treasure
Mirror with Pines, Bamboo, and Pair of Cranes, from the Sacred Treasures of Asuka Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, ceremonial feasts called naorai are held following the completion of rituals, whereupon the food and drink offerings presented to the kami are consumed by divine spirits and the living alike. In Buddhism also, offerings of food and drink are made to Buddhist deities as part of ritual services, after which lay parishioners and other faithful dine together with the officiating priests. In some Zen monasteries, ritual offerings of meals and tea to a temple’s founder are followed by the consumption of those same offerings.
Beautiful tableware made of lacquer is an indispensable part of these ritualized meals. Likewise, the enjoyment of a meal and the pouring of drinks can be seen wherever people gather, whether at a wedding or funeral, seasonal festivities like the viewing of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, or even a day out at the theater. Take the time to revel in Japan’s rich culture of feasting through the lacquerware that transformed festive dining into sublime events.

Portable Picnic Case with Gagaku Court Music Designs
Kyoto National Museum

The term hakubyō means “white drawing” and refers to a style of monochrome image that uses almost exclusively ink linework. This developed out of a tradition of East Asian painting that emphasizes the beauty of paper and line. In Japan, well known works such as the National Treasure Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) employ great variation in brushwork and ink gradation, while other hakubyō works that emerged from the refined aesthetics of court culture employ fine, uniform lines in a fluid hand. These latter works form a genre known as hakubyō Yamato-e, or Japanese-style monochrome painting, which reached its pinnacle in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). As the Kamakura period came to an end, an increasing number of more intimate works with looser linework began to be made, leading to a new era of monochrome painting.

Tale of the Princess (Chūgū monogatari)

Arhats, called rakan in Japanese, are sage-like high priests of Buddhism who were believed to have lived in ancient India. They were first pictorialized in China and their images later imported to Japan, where Japanese depictions usually maintain a distinctive, Chinese-influenced style. Arhats and their images have been worshiped in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), however their popularity increased dramatically in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) along with the growing influence of Zen Buddhism.
The early Chinese and Japanese painters of arhats and their audiences must have believed these images to resemble actual Buddhist elders in ancient India. Today, they are perhaps more striking for their strange, eccentric, and exoticized appearances. The gap between the real historical sages and their imaginative portrayal in painting makes this a truly fascinating subject of East Asian Buddhist art.

Important Cultural Property
Sixteen Arhats
Dairen-ji Temple, Shiga

During the summer season, the Medieval Paintings gallery presents a selection of decorated fan paintings. Fans have played an important role in the lives of Japanese people since ancient times. Used casually in daily life for cooling off, fans are also employed in many ritual and formal occasions and continue to serve a variety of functions today. The foldable surface of a fan provides a dynamic and compact surface for a rich variety of painting subjects, and over time artists and craftsmen produced large numbers of luxury fans decorated with beautiful paintings that served as sophisticated objects of gift exchange in elite society. In addition to paintings, Zen priests and other cultured elites inscribed poetic verses on fans and exchanged them as a way of deepening relationships. Brushed by a diverse range of artists, the fans on view provide an invaluable window into the world of medieval Japanese painting.

Important Cultural Property
Fan with Tale of Calligrapher Wang Xizhi
Inscription by Daigaku Shūsū and Ishō Tokugan; painting by Josetsu
Kyoto National Museum

Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674) was born in Kyoto as the grandson of the virtuosic sixteenth-century master, Kano Eitoku (1543–1590). At age sixteen he became the official painter in attendance (goyō eshi) to the Tokugawa shogun and began to position himself as the pillar of the Kano house of painters. His elegant and sophisticated painting style marked a divergence from previous Kano painters, not only setting a new standard for his followers but also influencing the broader trajectory of the many diverse schools of painting that flourished in the Edo period (1615–1868).
As the official painter of the realm in close proximity to the center of power in Edo, Tan’yū would later be characterized by the art historian Okakura Tenshin as the “Ieyasu of the art world,” an allusion to the first Tokugawa shogun. This exhibition presents highlights of Tan’yū’s career, displayed in the city of his birth, Kyoto.

Important Cultural Property
Pine Trees of the Four Seasons (Left Screen)
By Kano Tan’yū
Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto

The lotus has long been a favored motif in Chinese painting. Unstained by the muddy waters of its surroundings, the flower symbolizes purity and the ideal of freedom from worldly affairs. In his poetic essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” the eleventh-century philosopher Zhou Dunyi famously contrasted the nobility of the peony and the reclusiveness of the chrysanthemum with the purity of the lotus, praising it as “gentleman among flowers.” In Buddhism also, the lotus blossoms in the Pure Land and adorns images of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This exhibition features a wide variety of Chinese paintings that portray this most virtuous and sacred of flowers. We hope that you take your time to admire each work as you decipher the meaning of the lotus.

Important Cultural Property
Egrets in a Lotus Pond (Right Scroll)
Kyoto National Museum

From ancient times through the Edo period (1615–1868), almost all subjects of Japanese sculpture were religious in nature. After Buddhism was introduced to Japan and became firmly established in the seventh century, the production of Buddhist statues flourished. Buddhist deities and their images often have origins in South Asia or Central Asia, and they were usually transmitted to Japan by way of China, bringing with them a complex array of foreign influences.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese sculpture is its use of wood as a primary material. Various modes of carving and other techniques—including joint-block construction (yosegi-zukuri) and inlaid crystal eyes—were developed in Japan to create these wood images.
Over time, the repeated introduction of new images from the Asian continent contributed to further stylistic transformations and innovations in Japan. The Japanese Buddhist sculptures on view here reflect various styles of different historical periods.

Thousand-Armed Kannon (Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteśvara) in Incense Container-Shaped Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

The Chūson-ji Sutras comprise two sets of Buddhist scriptures that were dedicated by members of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan and offered to Chūson-ji Temple in Hiraizumi in the twelfth century. Each set is composed of more than 5,000 volumes. The “Kiyohira Sutras” were commissioned by the first patriarch of the Ōshū Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056–1128) and are transcribed in gold and silver characters on indigo-dyed paper. These were supplemented by the “Hidehira Sutras,” which used only gold characters and were sponsored by the third clan chieftain Fujiwara no Hidehira (?–1187).
The Shingon Buddhist temple Hinōsan Kanshin-ji in Kawachinagano City preserves 216 volumes of Chūson-ji Sutras. Enjoy the glimmering brilliance of these sublimely decorated sutras that convey the former glory and faith of the Ōshū Fujiwara.

Important Cultural Property
The Method of Mañjuśrīʼs Fundamental Single-Word Dhāraṇī (Kiyohira Sutra)
Vow by Fujiwara no Kiyohira
Kanshin-ji Temple, Osaka

Water is a central motif in visual cultures throughout the world. Falling from the heavens as rain or snow, the life-giving element flows into rivers and seeps underground, allowing us to quench our thirst and irrigate the crops that sustain life. The beauty of its everchanging form responds to the passage of time and the shape of its vessel. As the substance of majestic oceans and rivers, it inspires the artistic creation of sublime landscape paintings and designs rich in symbolic resonance.
Flowing, swirling, splashing – this exhibition introduces a variety of styles for representing water as a motif in the designs of dyed and woven Japanese textiles. The textiles on display highlight designs that incorporate the refreshing atmosphere of the waterside and abstracted designs of blue ocean waves.

Hitoe (Unlined Kimono) with Sweetfish and Wild Pinks in the Rainy Season
Kyoto National Museum

The Muromachi period (1392–1573) could be called the cradle of Japanese civilization as we know it today. The culture of the nobility, which flourished in Kyoto during the Heian period (794–1185), blended together with the samurai culture originating in eastern Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the latest cultural developments from continental Asia. Following the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, Japan entered an eventful 240 years marked by the strife-torn Nanbokuchō period (1333–1392), during which there were two rival imperial courts; the stable rule of the Muromachi shogunate; and the chaos of prolonged civil war.
In this section, we present cast metalwork from this formative period in the form of mirrors and chime-like percussive instruments called kei (Ch: bianqing). In addition to relics of the aristocratic Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures of Kyoto, the exhibition features masterworks from regions throughout Japan that advanced while Kyoto fell into decline during the civil wars of the Nanbokuchō through Momoyama periods.

National Treasure
Mirror with Pines, Bamboo, and Pair of Cranes, from the Sacred Treasures of Asuka Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, ceremonial feasts called naorai are held following the completion of rituals, whereupon the food and drink offerings presented to the kami are consumed by divine spirits and the living alike. In Buddhism also, offerings of food and drink are made to Buddhist deities as part of ritual services, after which lay parishioners and other faithful dine together with the officiating priests. In some Zen monasteries, ritual offerings of meals and tea to a temple’s founder are followed by the consumption of those same offerings.
Beautiful tableware made of lacquer is an indispensable part of these ritualized meals. Likewise, the enjoyment of a meal and the pouring of drinks can be seen wherever people gather, whether at a wedding or funeral, seasonal festivities like the viewing of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, or even a day out at the theater. Take the time to revel in Japan’s rich culture of feasting through the lacquerware that transformed festive dining into sublime events.

Portable Picnic Case with Gagaku Court Music Designs
Kyoto National Museum

The term hakubyō means “white drawing” and refers to a style of monochrome image that uses almost exclusively ink linework. This developed out of a tradition of East Asian painting that emphasizes the beauty of paper and line. In Japan, well known works such as the National Treasure Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) employ great variation in brushwork and ink gradation, while other hakubyō works that emerged from the refined aesthetics of court culture employ fine, uniform lines in a fluid hand. These latter works form a genre known as hakubyō Yamato-e, or Japanese-style monochrome painting, which reached its pinnacle in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). As the Kamakura period came to an end, an increasing number of more intimate works with looser linework began to be made, leading to a new era of monochrome painting.

Tale of the Princess (Chūgū monogatari)

Arhats, called rakan in Japanese, are sage-like high priests of Buddhism who were believed to have lived in ancient India. They were first pictorialized in China and their images later imported to Japan, where Japanese depictions usually maintain a distinctive, Chinese-influenced style. Arhats and their images have been worshiped in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), however their popularity increased dramatically in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) along with the growing influence of Zen Buddhism.
The early Chinese and Japanese painters of arhats and their audiences must have believed these images to resemble actual Buddhist elders in ancient India. Today, they are perhaps more striking for their strange, eccentric, and exoticized appearances. The gap between the real historical sages and their imaginative portrayal in painting makes this a truly fascinating subject of East Asian Buddhist art.

Important Cultural Property
Sixteen Arhats
Dairen-ji Temple, Shiga

During the summer season, the Medieval Paintings gallery presents a selection of decorated fan paintings. Fans have played an important role in the lives of Japanese people since ancient times. Used casually in daily life for cooling off, fans are also employed in many ritual and formal occasions and continue to serve a variety of functions today. The foldable surface of a fan provides a dynamic and compact surface for a rich variety of painting subjects, and over time artists and craftsmen produced large numbers of luxury fans decorated with beautiful paintings that served as sophisticated objects of gift exchange in elite society. In addition to paintings, Zen priests and other cultured elites inscribed poetic verses on fans and exchanged them as a way of deepening relationships. Brushed by a diverse range of artists, the fans on view provide an invaluable window into the world of medieval Japanese painting.

Important Cultural Property
Fan with Tale of Calligrapher Wang Xizhi
Inscription by Daigaku Shūsū and Ishō Tokugan; painting by Josetsu
Kyoto National Museum

Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674) was born in Kyoto as the grandson of the virtuosic sixteenth-century master, Kano Eitoku (1543–1590). At age sixteen he became the official painter in attendance (goyō eshi) to the Tokugawa shogun and began to position himself as the pillar of the Kano house of painters. His elegant and sophisticated painting style marked a divergence from previous Kano painters, not only setting a new standard for his followers but also influencing the broader trajectory of the many diverse schools of painting that flourished in the Edo period (1615–1868).
As the official painter of the realm in close proximity to the center of power in Edo, Tan’yū would later be characterized by the art historian Okakura Tenshin as the “Ieyasu of the art world,” an allusion to the first Tokugawa shogun. This exhibition presents highlights of Tan’yū’s career, displayed in the city of his birth, Kyoto.

Important Cultural Property
Pine Trees of the Four Seasons (Left Screen)
By Kano Tan’yū
Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto

The lotus has long been a favored motif in Chinese painting. Unstained by the muddy waters of its surroundings, the flower symbolizes purity and the ideal of freedom from worldly affairs. In his poetic essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” the eleventh-century philosopher Zhou Dunyi famously contrasted the nobility of the peony and the reclusiveness of the chrysanthemum with the purity of the lotus, praising it as “gentleman among flowers.” In Buddhism also, the lotus blossoms in the Pure Land and adorns images of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This exhibition features a wide variety of Chinese paintings that portray this most virtuous and sacred of flowers. We hope that you take your time to admire each work as you decipher the meaning of the lotus.

Important Cultural Property
Egrets in a Lotus Pond (Right Scroll)
Kyoto National Museum

From ancient times through the Edo period (1615–1868), almost all subjects of Japanese sculpture were religious in nature. After Buddhism was introduced to Japan and became firmly established in the seventh century, the production of Buddhist statues flourished. Buddhist deities and their images often have origins in South Asia or Central Asia, and they were usually transmitted to Japan by way of China, bringing with them a complex array of foreign influences.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese sculpture is its use of wood as a primary material. Various modes of carving and other techniques—including joint-block construction (yosegi-zukuri) and inlaid crystal eyes—were developed in Japan to create these wood images.
Over time, the repeated introduction of new images from the Asian continent contributed to further stylistic transformations and innovations in Japan. The Japanese Buddhist sculptures on view here reflect various styles of different historical periods.

Thousand-Armed Kannon (Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteśvara) in Incense Container-Shaped Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

The Chūson-ji Sutras comprise two sets of Buddhist scriptures that were dedicated by members of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan and offered to Chūson-ji Temple in Hiraizumi in the twelfth century. Each set is composed of more than 5,000 volumes. The “Kiyohira Sutras” were commissioned by the first patriarch of the Ōshū Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056–1128) and are transcribed in gold and silver characters on indigo-dyed paper. These were supplemented by the “Hidehira Sutras,” which used only gold characters and were sponsored by the third clan chieftain Fujiwara no Hidehira (?–1187).
The Shingon Buddhist temple Hinōsan Kanshin-ji in Kawachinagano City preserves 216 volumes of Chūson-ji Sutras. Enjoy the glimmering brilliance of these sublimely decorated sutras that convey the former glory and faith of the Ōshū Fujiwara.

Important Cultural Property
The Method of Mañjuśrīʼs Fundamental Single-Word Dhāraṇī (Kiyohira Sutra)
Vow by Fujiwara no Kiyohira
Kanshin-ji Temple, Osaka

Water is a central motif in visual cultures throughout the world. Falling from the heavens as rain or snow, the life-giving element flows into rivers and seeps underground, allowing us to quench our thirst and irrigate the crops that sustain life. The beauty of its everchanging form responds to the passage of time and the shape of its vessel. As the substance of majestic oceans and rivers, it inspires the artistic creation of sublime landscape paintings and designs rich in symbolic resonance.
Flowing, swirling, splashing – this exhibition introduces a variety of styles for representing water as a motif in the designs of dyed and woven Japanese textiles. The textiles on display highlight designs that incorporate the refreshing atmosphere of the waterside and abstracted designs of blue ocean waves.

Hitoe (Unlined Kimono) with Sweetfish and Wild Pinks in the Rainy Season
Kyoto National Museum

The Muromachi period (1392–1573) could be called the cradle of Japanese civilization as we know it today. The culture of the nobility, which flourished in Kyoto during the Heian period (794–1185), blended together with the samurai culture originating in eastern Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the latest cultural developments from continental Asia. Following the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, Japan entered an eventful 240 years marked by the strife-torn Nanbokuchō period (1333–1392), during which there were two rival imperial courts; the stable rule of the Muromachi shogunate; and the chaos of prolonged civil war.
In this section, we present cast metalwork from this formative period in the form of mirrors and chime-like percussive instruments called kei (Ch: bianqing). In addition to relics of the aristocratic Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures of Kyoto, the exhibition features masterworks from regions throughout Japan that advanced while Kyoto fell into decline during the civil wars of the Nanbokuchō through Momoyama periods.

National Treasure
Mirror with Pines, Bamboo, and Pair of Cranes, from the Sacred Treasures of Asuka Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, ceremonial feasts called naorai are held following the completion of rituals, whereupon the food and drink offerings presented to the kami are consumed by divine spirits and the living alike. In Buddhism also, offerings of food and drink are made to Buddhist deities as part of ritual services, after which lay parishioners and other faithful dine together with the officiating priests. In some Zen monasteries, ritual offerings of meals and tea to a temple’s founder are followed by the consumption of those same offerings.
Beautiful tableware made of lacquer is an indispensable part of these ritualized meals. Likewise, the enjoyment of a meal and the pouring of drinks can be seen wherever people gather, whether at a wedding or funeral, seasonal festivities like the viewing of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, or even a day out at the theater. Take the time to revel in Japan’s rich culture of feasting through the lacquerware that transformed festive dining into sublime events.

Portable Picnic Case with Gagaku Court Music Designs
Kyoto National Museum

The term hakubyō means “white drawing” and refers to a style of monochrome image that uses almost exclusively ink linework. This developed out of a tradition of East Asian painting that emphasizes the beauty of paper and line. In Japan, well known works such as the National Treasure Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) employ great variation in brushwork and ink gradation, while other hakubyō works that emerged from the refined aesthetics of court culture employ fine, uniform lines in a fluid hand. These latter works form a genre known as hakubyō Yamato-e, or Japanese-style monochrome painting, which reached its pinnacle in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). As the Kamakura period came to an end, an increasing number of more intimate works with looser linework began to be made, leading to a new era of monochrome painting.

Tale of the Princess (Chūgū monogatari)

Arhats, called rakan in Japanese, are sage-like high priests of Buddhism who were believed to have lived in ancient India. They were first pictorialized in China and their images later imported to Japan, where Japanese depictions usually maintain a distinctive, Chinese-influenced style. Arhats and their images have been worshiped in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), however their popularity increased dramatically in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) along with the growing influence of Zen Buddhism.
The early Chinese and Japanese painters of arhats and their audiences must have believed these images to resemble actual Buddhist elders in ancient India. Today, they are perhaps more striking for their strange, eccentric, and exoticized appearances. The gap between the real historical sages and their imaginative portrayal in painting makes this a truly fascinating subject of East Asian Buddhist art.

Important Cultural Property
Sixteen Arhats
Dairen-ji Temple, Shiga

During the summer season, the Medieval Paintings gallery presents a selection of decorated fan paintings. Fans have played an important role in the lives of Japanese people since ancient times. Used casually in daily life for cooling off, fans are also employed in many ritual and formal occasions and continue to serve a variety of functions today. The foldable surface of a fan provides a dynamic and compact surface for a rich variety of painting subjects, and over time artists and craftsmen produced large numbers of luxury fans decorated with beautiful paintings that served as sophisticated objects of gift exchange in elite society. In addition to paintings, Zen priests and other cultured elites inscribed poetic verses on fans and exchanged them as a way of deepening relationships. Brushed by a diverse range of artists, the fans on view provide an invaluable window into the world of medieval Japanese painting.

Important Cultural Property
Fan with Tale of Calligrapher Wang Xizhi
Inscription by Daigaku Shūsū and Ishō Tokugan; painting by Josetsu
Kyoto National Museum

Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674) was born in Kyoto as the grandson of the virtuosic sixteenth-century master, Kano Eitoku (1543–1590). At age sixteen he became the official painter in attendance (goyō eshi) to the Tokugawa shogun and began to position himself as the pillar of the Kano house of painters. His elegant and sophisticated painting style marked a divergence from previous Kano painters, not only setting a new standard for his followers but also influencing the broader trajectory of the many diverse schools of painting that flourished in the Edo period (1615–1868).
As the official painter of the realm in close proximity to the center of power in Edo, Tan’yū would later be characterized by the art historian Okakura Tenshin as the “Ieyasu of the art world,” an allusion to the first Tokugawa shogun. This exhibition presents highlights of Tan’yū’s career, displayed in the city of his birth, Kyoto.

Important Cultural Property
Pine Trees of the Four Seasons (Left Screen)
By Kano Tan’yū
Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto

The lotus has long been a favored motif in Chinese painting. Unstained by the muddy waters of its surroundings, the flower symbolizes purity and the ideal of freedom from worldly affairs. In his poetic essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” the eleventh-century philosopher Zhou Dunyi famously contrasted the nobility of the peony and the reclusiveness of the chrysanthemum with the purity of the lotus, praising it as “gentleman among flowers.” In Buddhism also, the lotus blossoms in the Pure Land and adorns images of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This exhibition features a wide variety of Chinese paintings that portray this most virtuous and sacred of flowers. We hope that you take your time to admire each work as you decipher the meaning of the lotus.

Important Cultural Property
Egrets in a Lotus Pond (Right Scroll)
Kyoto National Museum

From ancient times through the Edo period (1615–1868), almost all subjects of Japanese sculpture were religious in nature. After Buddhism was introduced to Japan and became firmly established in the seventh century, the production of Buddhist statues flourished. Buddhist deities and their images often have origins in South Asia or Central Asia, and they were usually transmitted to Japan by way of China, bringing with them a complex array of foreign influences.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese sculpture is its use of wood as a primary material. Various modes of carving and other techniques—including joint-block construction (yosegi-zukuri) and inlaid crystal eyes—were developed in Japan to create these wood images.
Over time, the repeated introduction of new images from the Asian continent contributed to further stylistic transformations and innovations in Japan. The Japanese Buddhist sculptures on view here reflect various styles of different historical periods.

Thousand-Armed Kannon (Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteśvara) in Incense Container-Shaped Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

The Chūson-ji Sutras comprise two sets of Buddhist scriptures that were dedicated by members of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan and offered to Chūson-ji Temple in Hiraizumi in the twelfth century. Each set is composed of more than 5,000 volumes. The “Kiyohira Sutras” were commissioned by the first patriarch of the Ōshū Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056–1128) and are transcribed in gold and silver characters on indigo-dyed paper. These were supplemented by the “Hidehira Sutras,” which used only gold characters and were sponsored by the third clan chieftain Fujiwara no Hidehira (?–1187).
The Shingon Buddhist temple Hinōsan Kanshin-ji in Kawachinagano City preserves 216 volumes of Chūson-ji Sutras. Enjoy the glimmering brilliance of these sublimely decorated sutras that convey the former glory and faith of the Ōshū Fujiwara.

Important Cultural Property
The Method of Mañjuśrīʼs Fundamental Single-Word Dhāraṇī (Kiyohira Sutra)
Vow by Fujiwara no Kiyohira
Kanshin-ji Temple, Osaka

Water is a central motif in visual cultures throughout the world. Falling from the heavens as rain or snow, the life-giving element flows into rivers and seeps underground, allowing us to quench our thirst and irrigate the crops that sustain life. The beauty of its everchanging form responds to the passage of time and the shape of its vessel. As the substance of majestic oceans and rivers, it inspires the artistic creation of sublime landscape paintings and designs rich in symbolic resonance.
Flowing, swirling, splashing – this exhibition introduces a variety of styles for representing water as a motif in the designs of dyed and woven Japanese textiles. The textiles on display highlight designs that incorporate the refreshing atmosphere of the waterside and abstracted designs of blue ocean waves.

Hitoe (Unlined Kimono) with Sweetfish and Wild Pinks in the Rainy Season
Kyoto National Museum

The Muromachi period (1392–1573) could be called the cradle of Japanese civilization as we know it today. The culture of the nobility, which flourished in Kyoto during the Heian period (794–1185), blended together with the samurai culture originating in eastern Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the latest cultural developments from continental Asia. Following the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, Japan entered an eventful 240 years marked by the strife-torn Nanbokuchō period (1333–1392), during which there were two rival imperial courts; the stable rule of the Muromachi shogunate; and the chaos of prolonged civil war.
In this section, we present cast metalwork from this formative period in the form of mirrors and chime-like percussive instruments called kei (Ch: bianqing). In addition to relics of the aristocratic Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures of Kyoto, the exhibition features masterworks from regions throughout Japan that advanced while Kyoto fell into decline during the civil wars of the Nanbokuchō through Momoyama periods.

National Treasure
Mirror with Pines, Bamboo, and Pair of Cranes, from the Sacred Treasures of Asuka Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, ceremonial feasts called naorai are held following the completion of rituals, whereupon the food and drink offerings presented to the kami are consumed by divine spirits and the living alike. In Buddhism also, offerings of food and drink are made to Buddhist deities as part of ritual services, after which lay parishioners and other faithful dine together with the officiating priests. In some Zen monasteries, ritual offerings of meals and tea to a temple’s founder are followed by the consumption of those same offerings.
Beautiful tableware made of lacquer is an indispensable part of these ritualized meals. Likewise, the enjoyment of a meal and the pouring of drinks can be seen wherever people gather, whether at a wedding or funeral, seasonal festivities like the viewing of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, or even a day out at the theater. Take the time to revel in Japan’s rich culture of feasting through the lacquerware that transformed festive dining into sublime events.

Portable Picnic Case with Gagaku Court Music Designs
Kyoto National Museum

Ceramics are prized not only for their beauty but also for their uses as dishes and in other quotidian functions. East Asian ceramics have a particularly wide range of patterns, forms, colors, and applications. They can incorporate vastly different materials and techniques, resulting in wares as diverse as earthenware or porcelain, with distinguishing characteristics deriving from the types of clay, the glazes, the décor, and the firing techniques employed at the site of their production. This gallery features a variety of ceramics from Japan, China, and the Korean Peninsula, pieces exemplifying the distinctive qualities and assets of each kiln site.

Tomb Figure of a Court Lady
Kyoto National Museum

The term hakubyō means “white drawing” and refers to a style of monochrome image that uses almost exclusively ink linework. This developed out of a tradition of East Asian painting that emphasizes the beauty of paper and line. In Japan, well known works such as the National Treasure Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) employ great variation in brushwork and ink gradation, while other hakubyō works that emerged from the refined aesthetics of court culture employ fine, uniform lines in a fluid hand. These latter works form a genre known as hakubyō Yamato-e, or Japanese-style monochrome painting, which reached its pinnacle in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). As the Kamakura period came to an end, an increasing number of more intimate works with looser linework began to be made, leading to a new era of monochrome painting.

Tale of the Princess (Chūgū monogatari)

Arhats, called rakan in Japanese, are sage-like high priests of Buddhism who were believed to have lived in ancient India. They were first pictorialized in China and their images later imported to Japan, where Japanese depictions usually maintain a distinctive, Chinese-influenced style. Arhats and their images have been worshiped in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), however their popularity increased dramatically in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) along with the growing influence of Zen Buddhism.
The early Chinese and Japanese painters of arhats and their audiences must have believed these images to resemble actual Buddhist elders in ancient India. Today, they are perhaps more striking for their strange, eccentric, and exoticized appearances. The gap between the real historical sages and their imaginative portrayal in painting makes this a truly fascinating subject of East Asian Buddhist art.

Important Cultural Property
Sixteen Arhats
Dairen-ji Temple, Shiga

During the summer season, the Medieval Paintings gallery presents a selection of decorated fan paintings. Fans have played an important role in the lives of Japanese people since ancient times. Used casually in daily life for cooling off, fans are also employed in many ritual and formal occasions and continue to serve a variety of functions today. The foldable surface of a fan provides a dynamic and compact surface for a rich variety of painting subjects, and over time artists and craftsmen produced large numbers of luxury fans decorated with beautiful paintings that served as sophisticated objects of gift exchange in elite society. In addition to paintings, Zen priests and other cultured elites inscribed poetic verses on fans and exchanged them as a way of deepening relationships. Brushed by a diverse range of artists, the fans on view provide an invaluable window into the world of medieval Japanese painting.

Important Cultural Property
Fan with Tale of Calligrapher Wang Xizhi
Inscription by Daigaku Shūsū and Ishō Tokugan; painting by Josetsu
Kyoto National Museum

Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674) was born in Kyoto as the grandson of the virtuosic sixteenth-century master, Kano Eitoku (1543–1590). At age sixteen he became the official painter in attendance (goyō eshi) to the Tokugawa shogun and began to position himself as the pillar of the Kano house of painters. His elegant and sophisticated painting style marked a divergence from previous Kano painters, not only setting a new standard for his followers but also influencing the broader trajectory of the many diverse schools of painting that flourished in the Edo period (1615–1868).
As the official painter of the realm in close proximity to the center of power in Edo, Tan’yū would later be characterized by the art historian Okakura Tenshin as the “Ieyasu of the art world,” an allusion to the first Tokugawa shogun. This exhibition presents highlights of Tan’yū’s career, displayed in the city of his birth, Kyoto.

Important Cultural Property
Pine Trees of the Four Seasons (Left Screen)
By Kano Tan’yū
Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto

The lotus has long been a favored motif in Chinese painting. Unstained by the muddy waters of its surroundings, the flower symbolizes purity and the ideal of freedom from worldly affairs. In his poetic essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” the eleventh-century philosopher Zhou Dunyi famously contrasted the nobility of the peony and the reclusiveness of the chrysanthemum with the purity of the lotus, praising it as “gentleman among flowers.” In Buddhism also, the lotus blossoms in the Pure Land and adorns images of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This exhibition features a wide variety of Chinese paintings that portray this most virtuous and sacred of flowers. We hope that you take your time to admire each work as you decipher the meaning of the lotus.

Important Cultural Property
Egrets in a Lotus Pond (Right Scroll)
Kyoto National Museum

From ancient times through the Edo period (1615–1868), almost all subjects of Japanese sculpture were religious in nature. After Buddhism was introduced to Japan and became firmly established in the seventh century, the production of Buddhist statues flourished. Buddhist deities and their images often have origins in South Asia or Central Asia, and they were usually transmitted to Japan by way of China, bringing with them a complex array of foreign influences.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese sculpture is its use of wood as a primary material. Various modes of carving and other techniques—including joint-block construction (yosegi-zukuri) and inlaid crystal eyes—were developed in Japan to create these wood images.
Over time, the repeated introduction of new images from the Asian continent contributed to further stylistic transformations and innovations in Japan. The Japanese Buddhist sculptures on view here reflect various styles of different historical periods.

Thousand-Armed Kannon (Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteśvara) in Incense Container-Shaped Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

The Chūson-ji Sutras comprise two sets of Buddhist scriptures that were dedicated by members of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan and offered to Chūson-ji Temple in Hiraizumi in the twelfth century. Each set is composed of more than 5,000 volumes. The “Kiyohira Sutras” were commissioned by the first patriarch of the Ōshū Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056–1128) and are transcribed in gold and silver characters on indigo-dyed paper. These were supplemented by the “Hidehira Sutras,” which used only gold characters and were sponsored by the third clan chieftain Fujiwara no Hidehira (?–1187).
The Shingon Buddhist temple Hinōsan Kanshin-ji in Kawachinagano City preserves 216 volumes of Chūson-ji Sutras. Enjoy the glimmering brilliance of these sublimely decorated sutras that convey the former glory and faith of the Ōshū Fujiwara.

Important Cultural Property
The Method of Mañjuśrīʼs Fundamental Single-Word Dhāraṇī (Kiyohira Sutra)
Vow by Fujiwara no Kiyohira
Kanshin-ji Temple, Osaka

Water is a central motif in visual cultures throughout the world. Falling from the heavens as rain or snow, the life-giving element flows into rivers and seeps underground, allowing us to quench our thirst and irrigate the crops that sustain life. The beauty of its everchanging form responds to the passage of time and the shape of its vessel. As the substance of majestic oceans and rivers, it inspires the artistic creation of sublime landscape paintings and designs rich in symbolic resonance.
Flowing, swirling, splashing – this exhibition introduces a variety of styles for representing water as a motif in the designs of dyed and woven Japanese textiles. The textiles on display highlight designs that incorporate the refreshing atmosphere of the waterside and abstracted designs of blue ocean waves.

Hitoe (Unlined Kimono) with Sweetfish and Wild Pinks in the Rainy Season
Kyoto National Museum

The Muromachi period (1392–1573) could be called the cradle of Japanese civilization as we know it today. The culture of the nobility, which flourished in Kyoto during the Heian period (794–1185), blended together with the samurai culture originating in eastern Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the latest cultural developments from continental Asia. Following the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, Japan entered an eventful 240 years marked by the strife-torn Nanbokuchō period (1333–1392), during which there were two rival imperial courts; the stable rule of the Muromachi shogunate; and the chaos of prolonged civil war.
In this section, we present cast metalwork from this formative period in the form of mirrors and chime-like percussive instruments called kei (Ch: bianqing). In addition to relics of the aristocratic Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures of Kyoto, the exhibition features masterworks from regions throughout Japan that advanced while Kyoto fell into decline during the civil wars of the Nanbokuchō through Momoyama periods.

National Treasure
Mirror with Pines, Bamboo, and Pair of Cranes, from the Sacred Treasures of Asuka Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, ceremonial feasts called naorai are held following the completion of rituals, whereupon the food and drink offerings presented to the kami are consumed by divine spirits and the living alike. In Buddhism also, offerings of food and drink are made to Buddhist deities as part of ritual services, after which lay parishioners and other faithful dine together with the officiating priests. In some Zen monasteries, ritual offerings of meals and tea to a temple’s founder are followed by the consumption of those same offerings.
Beautiful tableware made of lacquer is an indispensable part of these ritualized meals. Likewise, the enjoyment of a meal and the pouring of drinks can be seen wherever people gather, whether at a wedding or funeral, seasonal festivities like the viewing of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, or even a day out at the theater. Take the time to revel in Japan’s rich culture of feasting through the lacquerware that transformed festive dining into sublime events.

Portable Picnic Case with Gagaku Court Music Designs
Kyoto National Museum

Ceramics are prized not only for their beauty but also for their uses as dishes and in other quotidian functions. East Asian ceramics have a particularly wide range of patterns, forms, colors, and applications. They can incorporate vastly different materials and techniques, resulting in wares as diverse as earthenware or porcelain, with distinguishing characteristics deriving from the types of clay, the glazes, the décor, and the firing techniques employed at the site of their production. This gallery features a variety of ceramics from Japan, China, and the Korean Peninsula, pieces exemplifying the distinctive qualities and assets of each kiln site.

Tomb Figure of a Court Lady
Kyoto National Museum

The term hakubyō means “white drawing” and refers to a style of monochrome image that uses almost exclusively ink linework. This developed out of a tradition of East Asian painting that emphasizes the beauty of paper and line. In Japan, well known works such as the National Treasure Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) employ great variation in brushwork and ink gradation, while other hakubyō works that emerged from the refined aesthetics of court culture employ fine, uniform lines in a fluid hand. These latter works form a genre known as hakubyō Yamato-e, or Japanese-style monochrome painting, which reached its pinnacle in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). As the Kamakura period came to an end, an increasing number of more intimate works with looser linework began to be made, leading to a new era of monochrome painting.

Tale of the Princess (Chūgū monogatari)

Arhats, called rakan in Japanese, are sage-like high priests of Buddhism who were believed to have lived in ancient India. They were first pictorialized in China and their images later imported to Japan, where Japanese depictions usually maintain a distinctive, Chinese-influenced style. Arhats and their images have been worshiped in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), however their popularity increased dramatically in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) along with the growing influence of Zen Buddhism.
The early Chinese and Japanese painters of arhats and their audiences must have believed these images to resemble actual Buddhist elders in ancient India. Today, they are perhaps more striking for their strange, eccentric, and exoticized appearances. The gap between the real historical sages and their imaginative portrayal in painting makes this a truly fascinating subject of East Asian Buddhist art.

Important Cultural Property
Sixteen Arhats
Dairen-ji Temple, Shiga

During the summer season, the Medieval Paintings gallery presents a selection of decorated fan paintings. Fans have played an important role in the lives of Japanese people since ancient times. Used casually in daily life for cooling off, fans are also employed in many ritual and formal occasions and continue to serve a variety of functions today. The foldable surface of a fan provides a dynamic and compact surface for a rich variety of painting subjects, and over time artists and craftsmen produced large numbers of luxury fans decorated with beautiful paintings that served as sophisticated objects of gift exchange in elite society. In addition to paintings, Zen priests and other cultured elites inscribed poetic verses on fans and exchanged them as a way of deepening relationships. Brushed by a diverse range of artists, the fans on view provide an invaluable window into the world of medieval Japanese painting.

Important Cultural Property
Fan with Tale of Calligrapher Wang Xizhi
Inscription by Daigaku Shūsū and Ishō Tokugan; painting by Josetsu
Kyoto National Museum

Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674) was born in Kyoto as the grandson of the virtuosic sixteenth-century master, Kano Eitoku (1543–1590). At age sixteen he became the official painter in attendance (goyō eshi) to the Tokugawa shogun and began to position himself as the pillar of the Kano house of painters. His elegant and sophisticated painting style marked a divergence from previous Kano painters, not only setting a new standard for his followers but also influencing the broader trajectory of the many diverse schools of painting that flourished in the Edo period (1615–1868).
As the official painter of the realm in close proximity to the center of power in Edo, Tan’yū would later be characterized by the art historian Okakura Tenshin as the “Ieyasu of the art world,” an allusion to the first Tokugawa shogun. This exhibition presents highlights of Tan’yū’s career, displayed in the city of his birth, Kyoto.

Important Cultural Property
Pine Trees of the Four Seasons (Left Screen)
By Kano Tan’yū
Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto

The lotus has long been a favored motif in Chinese painting. Unstained by the muddy waters of its surroundings, the flower symbolizes purity and the ideal of freedom from worldly affairs. In his poetic essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” the eleventh-century philosopher Zhou Dunyi famously contrasted the nobility of the peony and the reclusiveness of the chrysanthemum with the purity of the lotus, praising it as “gentleman among flowers.” In Buddhism also, the lotus blossoms in the Pure Land and adorns images of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This exhibition features a wide variety of Chinese paintings that portray this most virtuous and sacred of flowers. We hope that you take your time to admire each work as you decipher the meaning of the lotus.

Important Cultural Property
Egrets in a Lotus Pond (Right Scroll)
Kyoto National Museum

From ancient times through the Edo period (1615–1868), almost all subjects of Japanese sculpture were religious in nature. After Buddhism was introduced to Japan and became firmly established in the seventh century, the production of Buddhist statues flourished. Buddhist deities and their images often have origins in South Asia or Central Asia, and they were usually transmitted to Japan by way of China, bringing with them a complex array of foreign influences.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese sculpture is its use of wood as a primary material. Various modes of carving and other techniques—including joint-block construction (yosegi-zukuri) and inlaid crystal eyes—were developed in Japan to create these wood images.
Over time, the repeated introduction of new images from the Asian continent contributed to further stylistic transformations and innovations in Japan. The Japanese Buddhist sculptures on view here reflect various styles of different historical periods.

Thousand-Armed Kannon (Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteśvara) in Incense Container-Shaped Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

The Chūson-ji Sutras comprise two sets of Buddhist scriptures that were dedicated by members of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan and offered to Chūson-ji Temple in Hiraizumi in the twelfth century. Each set is composed of more than 5,000 volumes. The “Kiyohira Sutras” were commissioned by the first patriarch of the Ōshū Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056–1128) and are transcribed in gold and silver characters on indigo-dyed paper. These were supplemented by the “Hidehira Sutras,” which used only gold characters and were sponsored by the third clan chieftain Fujiwara no Hidehira (?–1187).
The Shingon Buddhist temple Hinōsan Kanshin-ji in Kawachinagano City preserves 216 volumes of Chūson-ji Sutras. Enjoy the glimmering brilliance of these sublimely decorated sutras that convey the former glory and faith of the Ōshū Fujiwara.

Important Cultural Property
The Method of Mañjuśrīʼs Fundamental Single-Word Dhāraṇī (Kiyohira Sutra)
Vow by Fujiwara no Kiyohira
Kanshin-ji Temple, Osaka

Water is a central motif in visual cultures throughout the world. Falling from the heavens as rain or snow, the life-giving element flows into rivers and seeps underground, allowing us to quench our thirst and irrigate the crops that sustain life. The beauty of its everchanging form responds to the passage of time and the shape of its vessel. As the substance of majestic oceans and rivers, it inspires the artistic creation of sublime landscape paintings and designs rich in symbolic resonance.
Flowing, swirling, splashing – this exhibition introduces a variety of styles for representing water as a motif in the designs of dyed and woven Japanese textiles. The textiles on display highlight designs that incorporate the refreshing atmosphere of the waterside and abstracted designs of blue ocean waves.

Hitoe (Unlined Kimono) with Sweetfish and Wild Pinks in the Rainy Season
Kyoto National Museum

The Muromachi period (1392–1573) could be called the cradle of Japanese civilization as we know it today. The culture of the nobility, which flourished in Kyoto during the Heian period (794–1185), blended together with the samurai culture originating in eastern Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the latest cultural developments from continental Asia. Following the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, Japan entered an eventful 240 years marked by the strife-torn Nanbokuchō period (1333–1392), during which there were two rival imperial courts; the stable rule of the Muromachi shogunate; and the chaos of prolonged civil war.
In this section, we present cast metalwork from this formative period in the form of mirrors and chime-like percussive instruments called kei (Ch: bianqing). In addition to relics of the aristocratic Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures of Kyoto, the exhibition features masterworks from regions throughout Japan that advanced while Kyoto fell into decline during the civil wars of the Nanbokuchō through Momoyama periods.

National Treasure
Mirror with Pines, Bamboo, and Pair of Cranes, from the Sacred Treasures of Asuka Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, ceremonial feasts called naorai are held following the completion of rituals, whereupon the food and drink offerings presented to the kami are consumed by divine spirits and the living alike. In Buddhism also, offerings of food and drink are made to Buddhist deities as part of ritual services, after which lay parishioners and other faithful dine together with the officiating priests. In some Zen monasteries, ritual offerings of meals and tea to a temple’s founder are followed by the consumption of those same offerings.
Beautiful tableware made of lacquer is an indispensable part of these ritualized meals. Likewise, the enjoyment of a meal and the pouring of drinks can be seen wherever people gather, whether at a wedding or funeral, seasonal festivities like the viewing of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, or even a day out at the theater. Take the time to revel in Japan’s rich culture of feasting through the lacquerware that transformed festive dining into sublime events.

Portable Picnic Case with Gagaku Court Music Designs
Kyoto National Museum

Ceramics are prized not only for their beauty but also for their uses as dishes and in other quotidian functions. East Asian ceramics have a particularly wide range of patterns, forms, colors, and applications. They can incorporate vastly different materials and techniques, resulting in wares as diverse as earthenware or porcelain, with distinguishing characteristics deriving from the types of clay, the glazes, the décor, and the firing techniques employed at the site of their production. This gallery features a variety of ceramics from Japan, China, and the Korean Peninsula, pieces exemplifying the distinctive qualities and assets of each kiln site.

Tomb Figure of a Court Lady
Kyoto National Museum

The term hakubyō means “white drawing” and refers to a style of monochrome image that uses almost exclusively ink linework. This developed out of a tradition of East Asian painting that emphasizes the beauty of paper and line. In Japan, well known works such as the National Treasure Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) employ great variation in brushwork and ink gradation, while other hakubyō works that emerged from the refined aesthetics of court culture employ fine, uniform lines in a fluid hand. These latter works form a genre known as hakubyō Yamato-e, or Japanese-style monochrome painting, which reached its pinnacle in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). As the Kamakura period came to an end, an increasing number of more intimate works with looser linework began to be made, leading to a new era of monochrome painting.

Tale of the Princess (Chūgū monogatari)

Arhats, called rakan in Japanese, are sage-like high priests of Buddhism who were believed to have lived in ancient India. They were first pictorialized in China and their images later imported to Japan, where Japanese depictions usually maintain a distinctive, Chinese-influenced style. Arhats and their images have been worshiped in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), however their popularity increased dramatically in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) along with the growing influence of Zen Buddhism.
The early Chinese and Japanese painters of arhats and their audiences must have believed these images to resemble actual Buddhist elders in ancient India. Today, they are perhaps more striking for their strange, eccentric, and exoticized appearances. The gap between the real historical sages and their imaginative portrayal in painting makes this a truly fascinating subject of East Asian Buddhist art.

Important Cultural Property
Sixteen Arhats
Dairen-ji Temple, Shiga

During the summer season, the Medieval Paintings gallery presents a selection of decorated fan paintings. Fans have played an important role in the lives of Japanese people since ancient times. Used casually in daily life for cooling off, fans are also employed in many ritual and formal occasions and continue to serve a variety of functions today. The foldable surface of a fan provides a dynamic and compact surface for a rich variety of painting subjects, and over time artists and craftsmen produced large numbers of luxury fans decorated with beautiful paintings that served as sophisticated objects of gift exchange in elite society. In addition to paintings, Zen priests and other cultured elites inscribed poetic verses on fans and exchanged them as a way of deepening relationships. Brushed by a diverse range of artists, the fans on view provide an invaluable window into the world of medieval Japanese painting.

Important Cultural Property
Fan with Tale of Calligrapher Wang Xizhi
Inscription by Daigaku Shūsū and Ishō Tokugan; painting by Josetsu
Kyoto National Museum

Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674) was born in Kyoto as the grandson of the virtuosic sixteenth-century master, Kano Eitoku (1543–1590). At age sixteen he became the official painter in attendance (goyō eshi) to the Tokugawa shogun and began to position himself as the pillar of the Kano house of painters. His elegant and sophisticated painting style marked a divergence from previous Kano painters, not only setting a new standard for his followers but also influencing the broader trajectory of the many diverse schools of painting that flourished in the Edo period (1615–1868).
As the official painter of the realm in close proximity to the center of power in Edo, Tan’yū would later be characterized by the art historian Okakura Tenshin as the “Ieyasu of the art world,” an allusion to the first Tokugawa shogun. This exhibition presents highlights of Tan’yū’s career, displayed in the city of his birth, Kyoto.

Important Cultural Property
Pine Trees of the Four Seasons (Left Screen)
By Kano Tan’yū
Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto

The lotus has long been a favored motif in Chinese painting. Unstained by the muddy waters of its surroundings, the flower symbolizes purity and the ideal of freedom from worldly affairs. In his poetic essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” the eleventh-century philosopher Zhou Dunyi famously contrasted the nobility of the peony and the reclusiveness of the chrysanthemum with the purity of the lotus, praising it as “gentleman among flowers.” In Buddhism also, the lotus blossoms in the Pure Land and adorns images of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This exhibition features a wide variety of Chinese paintings that portray this most virtuous and sacred of flowers. We hope that you take your time to admire each work as you decipher the meaning of the lotus.

Important Cultural Property
Egrets in a Lotus Pond (Right Scroll)
Kyoto National Museum

From ancient times through the Edo period (1615–1868), almost all subjects of Japanese sculpture were religious in nature. After Buddhism was introduced to Japan and became firmly established in the seventh century, the production of Buddhist statues flourished. Buddhist deities and their images often have origins in South Asia or Central Asia, and they were usually transmitted to Japan by way of China, bringing with them a complex array of foreign influences.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese sculpture is its use of wood as a primary material. Various modes of carving and other techniques—including joint-block construction (yosegi-zukuri) and inlaid crystal eyes—were developed in Japan to create these wood images.
Over time, the repeated introduction of new images from the Asian continent contributed to further stylistic transformations and innovations in Japan. The Japanese Buddhist sculptures on view here reflect various styles of different historical periods.

Thousand-Armed Kannon (Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteśvara) in Incense Container-Shaped Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

The Chūson-ji Sutras comprise two sets of Buddhist scriptures that were dedicated by members of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan and offered to Chūson-ji Temple in Hiraizumi in the twelfth century. Each set is composed of more than 5,000 volumes. The “Kiyohira Sutras” were commissioned by the first patriarch of the Ōshū Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056–1128) and are transcribed in gold and silver characters on indigo-dyed paper. These were supplemented by the “Hidehira Sutras,” which used only gold characters and were sponsored by the third clan chieftain Fujiwara no Hidehira (?–1187).
The Shingon Buddhist temple Hinōsan Kanshin-ji in Kawachinagano City preserves 216 volumes of Chūson-ji Sutras. Enjoy the glimmering brilliance of these sublimely decorated sutras that convey the former glory and faith of the Ōshū Fujiwara.

Important Cultural Property
The Method of Mañjuśrīʼs Fundamental Single-Word Dhāraṇī (Kiyohira Sutra)
Vow by Fujiwara no Kiyohira
Kanshin-ji Temple, Osaka

Water is a central motif in visual cultures throughout the world. Falling from the heavens as rain or snow, the life-giving element flows into rivers and seeps underground, allowing us to quench our thirst and irrigate the crops that sustain life. The beauty of its everchanging form responds to the passage of time and the shape of its vessel. As the substance of majestic oceans and rivers, it inspires the artistic creation of sublime landscape paintings and designs rich in symbolic resonance.
Flowing, swirling, splashing – this exhibition introduces a variety of styles for representing water as a motif in the designs of dyed and woven Japanese textiles. The textiles on display highlight designs that incorporate the refreshing atmosphere of the waterside and abstracted designs of blue ocean waves.

Hitoe (Unlined Kimono) with Sweetfish and Wild Pinks in the Rainy Season
Kyoto National Museum

The Muromachi period (1392–1573) could be called the cradle of Japanese civilization as we know it today. The culture of the nobility, which flourished in Kyoto during the Heian period (794–1185), blended together with the samurai culture originating in eastern Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the latest cultural developments from continental Asia. Following the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, Japan entered an eventful 240 years marked by the strife-torn Nanbokuchō period (1333–1392), during which there were two rival imperial courts; the stable rule of the Muromachi shogunate; and the chaos of prolonged civil war.
In this section, we present cast metalwork from this formative period in the form of mirrors and chime-like percussive instruments called kei (Ch: bianqing). In addition to relics of the aristocratic Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures of Kyoto, the exhibition features masterworks from regions throughout Japan that advanced while Kyoto fell into decline during the civil wars of the Nanbokuchō through Momoyama periods.

National Treasure
Mirror with Pines, Bamboo, and Pair of Cranes, from the Sacred Treasures of Asuka Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, ceremonial feasts called naorai are held following the completion of rituals, whereupon the food and drink offerings presented to the kami are consumed by divine spirits and the living alike. In Buddhism also, offerings of food and drink are made to Buddhist deities as part of ritual services, after which lay parishioners and other faithful dine together with the officiating priests. In some Zen monasteries, ritual offerings of meals and tea to a temple’s founder are followed by the consumption of those same offerings.
Beautiful tableware made of lacquer is an indispensable part of these ritualized meals. Likewise, the enjoyment of a meal and the pouring of drinks can be seen wherever people gather, whether at a wedding or funeral, seasonal festivities like the viewing of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, or even a day out at the theater. Take the time to revel in Japan’s rich culture of feasting through the lacquerware that transformed festive dining into sublime events.

Portable Picnic Case with Gagaku Court Music Designs
Kyoto National Museum

Ceramics are prized not only for their beauty but also for their uses as dishes and in other quotidian functions. East Asian ceramics have a particularly wide range of patterns, forms, colors, and applications. They can incorporate vastly different materials and techniques, resulting in wares as diverse as earthenware or porcelain, with distinguishing characteristics deriving from the types of clay, the glazes, the décor, and the firing techniques employed at the site of their production. This gallery features a variety of ceramics from Japan, China, and the Korean Peninsula, pieces exemplifying the distinctive qualities and assets of each kiln site.

Tomb Figure of a Court Lady
Kyoto National Museum

The term hakubyō means “white drawing” and refers to a style of monochrome image that uses almost exclusively ink linework. This developed out of a tradition of East Asian painting that emphasizes the beauty of paper and line. In Japan, well known works such as the National Treasure Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) employ great variation in brushwork and ink gradation, while other hakubyō works that emerged from the refined aesthetics of court culture employ fine, uniform lines in a fluid hand. These latter works form a genre known as hakubyō Yamato-e, or Japanese-style monochrome painting, which reached its pinnacle in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). As the Kamakura period came to an end, an increasing number of more intimate works with looser linework began to be made, leading to a new era of monochrome painting.

Tale of the Princess (Chūgū monogatari)

Arhats, called rakan in Japanese, are sage-like high priests of Buddhism who were believed to have lived in ancient India. They were first pictorialized in China and their images later imported to Japan, where Japanese depictions usually maintain a distinctive, Chinese-influenced style. Arhats and their images have been worshiped in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), however their popularity increased dramatically in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) along with the growing influence of Zen Buddhism.
The early Chinese and Japanese painters of arhats and their audiences must have believed these images to resemble actual Buddhist elders in ancient India. Today, they are perhaps more striking for their strange, eccentric, and exoticized appearances. The gap between the real historical sages and their imaginative portrayal in painting makes this a truly fascinating subject of East Asian Buddhist art.

Important Cultural Property
Sixteen Arhats
Dairen-ji Temple, Shiga

During the summer season, the Medieval Paintings gallery presents a selection of decorated fan paintings. Fans have played an important role in the lives of Japanese people since ancient times. Used casually in daily life for cooling off, fans are also employed in many ritual and formal occasions and continue to serve a variety of functions today. The foldable surface of a fan provides a dynamic and compact surface for a rich variety of painting subjects, and over time artists and craftsmen produced large numbers of luxury fans decorated with beautiful paintings that served as sophisticated objects of gift exchange in elite society. In addition to paintings, Zen priests and other cultured elites inscribed poetic verses on fans and exchanged them as a way of deepening relationships. Brushed by a diverse range of artists, the fans on view provide an invaluable window into the world of medieval Japanese painting.

Important Cultural Property
Fan with Tale of Calligrapher Wang Xizhi
Inscription by Daigaku Shūsū and Ishō Tokugan; painting by Josetsu
Kyoto National Museum

Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674) was born in Kyoto as the grandson of the virtuosic sixteenth-century master, Kano Eitoku (1543–1590). At age sixteen he became the official painter in attendance (goyō eshi) to the Tokugawa shogun and began to position himself as the pillar of the Kano house of painters. His elegant and sophisticated painting style marked a divergence from previous Kano painters, not only setting a new standard for his followers but also influencing the broader trajectory of the many diverse schools of painting that flourished in the Edo period (1615–1868).
As the official painter of the realm in close proximity to the center of power in Edo, Tan’yū would later be characterized by the art historian Okakura Tenshin as the “Ieyasu of the art world,” an allusion to the first Tokugawa shogun. This exhibition presents highlights of Tan’yū’s career, displayed in the city of his birth, Kyoto.

Important Cultural Property
Pine Trees of the Four Seasons (Left Screen)
By Kano Tan’yū
Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto

The lotus has long been a favored motif in Chinese painting. Unstained by the muddy waters of its surroundings, the flower symbolizes purity and the ideal of freedom from worldly affairs. In his poetic essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” the eleventh-century philosopher Zhou Dunyi famously contrasted the nobility of the peony and the reclusiveness of the chrysanthemum with the purity of the lotus, praising it as “gentleman among flowers.” In Buddhism also, the lotus blossoms in the Pure Land and adorns images of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This exhibition features a wide variety of Chinese paintings that portray this most virtuous and sacred of flowers. We hope that you take your time to admire each work as you decipher the meaning of the lotus.

Important Cultural Property
Egrets in a Lotus Pond (Right Scroll)
Kyoto National Museum

From ancient times through the Edo period (1615–1868), almost all subjects of Japanese sculpture were religious in nature. After Buddhism was introduced to Japan and became firmly established in the seventh century, the production of Buddhist statues flourished. Buddhist deities and their images often have origins in South Asia or Central Asia, and they were usually transmitted to Japan by way of China, bringing with them a complex array of foreign influences.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese sculpture is its use of wood as a primary material. Various modes of carving and other techniques—including joint-block construction (yosegi-zukuri) and inlaid crystal eyes—were developed in Japan to create these wood images.
Over time, the repeated introduction of new images from the Asian continent contributed to further stylistic transformations and innovations in Japan. The Japanese Buddhist sculptures on view here reflect various styles of different historical periods.

Thousand-Armed Kannon (Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteśvara) in Incense Container-Shaped Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

The Chūson-ji Sutras comprise two sets of Buddhist scriptures that were dedicated by members of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan and offered to Chūson-ji Temple in Hiraizumi in the twelfth century. Each set is composed of more than 5,000 volumes. The “Kiyohira Sutras” were commissioned by the first patriarch of the Ōshū Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056–1128) and are transcribed in gold and silver characters on indigo-dyed paper. These were supplemented by the “Hidehira Sutras,” which used only gold characters and were sponsored by the third clan chieftain Fujiwara no Hidehira (?–1187).
The Shingon Buddhist temple Hinōsan Kanshin-ji in Kawachinagano City preserves 216 volumes of Chūson-ji Sutras. Enjoy the glimmering brilliance of these sublimely decorated sutras that convey the former glory and faith of the Ōshū Fujiwara.

Important Cultural Property
The Method of Mañjuśrīʼs Fundamental Single-Word Dhāraṇī (Kiyohira Sutra)
Vow by Fujiwara no Kiyohira
Kanshin-ji Temple, Osaka

Water is a central motif in visual cultures throughout the world. Falling from the heavens as rain or snow, the life-giving element flows into rivers and seeps underground, allowing us to quench our thirst and irrigate the crops that sustain life. The beauty of its everchanging form responds to the passage of time and the shape of its vessel. As the substance of majestic oceans and rivers, it inspires the artistic creation of sublime landscape paintings and designs rich in symbolic resonance.
Flowing, swirling, splashing – this exhibition introduces a variety of styles for representing water as a motif in the designs of dyed and woven Japanese textiles. The textiles on display highlight designs that incorporate the refreshing atmosphere of the waterside and abstracted designs of blue ocean waves.

Hitoe (Unlined Kimono) with Sweetfish and Wild Pinks in the Rainy Season
Kyoto National Museum

The Muromachi period (1392–1573) could be called the cradle of Japanese civilization as we know it today. The culture of the nobility, which flourished in Kyoto during the Heian period (794–1185), blended together with the samurai culture originating in eastern Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the latest cultural developments from continental Asia. Following the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, Japan entered an eventful 240 years marked by the strife-torn Nanbokuchō period (1333–1392), during which there were two rival imperial courts; the stable rule of the Muromachi shogunate; and the chaos of prolonged civil war.
In this section, we present cast metalwork from this formative period in the form of mirrors and chime-like percussive instruments called kei (Ch: bianqing). In addition to relics of the aristocratic Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures of Kyoto, the exhibition features masterworks from regions throughout Japan that advanced while Kyoto fell into decline during the civil wars of the Nanbokuchō through Momoyama periods.

National Treasure
Mirror with Pines, Bamboo, and Pair of Cranes, from the Sacred Treasures of Asuka Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, ceremonial feasts called naorai are held following the completion of rituals, whereupon the food and drink offerings presented to the kami are consumed by divine spirits and the living alike. In Buddhism also, offerings of food and drink are made to Buddhist deities as part of ritual services, after which lay parishioners and other faithful dine together with the officiating priests. In some Zen monasteries, ritual offerings of meals and tea to a temple’s founder are followed by the consumption of those same offerings.
Beautiful tableware made of lacquer is an indispensable part of these ritualized meals. Likewise, the enjoyment of a meal and the pouring of drinks can be seen wherever people gather, whether at a wedding or funeral, seasonal festivities like the viewing of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, or even a day out at the theater. Take the time to revel in Japan’s rich culture of feasting through the lacquerware that transformed festive dining into sublime events.

Portable Picnic Case with Gagaku Court Music Designs
Kyoto National Museum

Ceramics are prized not only for their beauty but also for their uses as dishes and in other quotidian functions. East Asian ceramics have a particularly wide range of patterns, forms, colors, and applications. They can incorporate vastly different materials and techniques, resulting in wares as diverse as earthenware or porcelain, with distinguishing characteristics deriving from the types of clay, the glazes, the décor, and the firing techniques employed at the site of their production. This gallery features a variety of ceramics from Japan, China, and the Korean Peninsula, pieces exemplifying the distinctive qualities and assets of each kiln site.

Tomb Figure of a Court Lady
Kyoto National Museum

The term hakubyō means “white drawing” and refers to a style of monochrome image that uses almost exclusively ink linework. This developed out of a tradition of East Asian painting that emphasizes the beauty of paper and line. In Japan, well known works such as the National Treasure Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) employ great variation in brushwork and ink gradation, while other hakubyō works that emerged from the refined aesthetics of court culture employ fine, uniform lines in a fluid hand. These latter works form a genre known as hakubyō Yamato-e, or Japanese-style monochrome painting, which reached its pinnacle in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). As the Kamakura period came to an end, an increasing number of more intimate works with looser linework began to be made, leading to a new era of monochrome painting.

Tale of the Princess (Chūgū monogatari)

Arhats, called rakan in Japanese, are sage-like high priests of Buddhism who were believed to have lived in ancient India. They were first pictorialized in China and their images later imported to Japan, where Japanese depictions usually maintain a distinctive, Chinese-influenced style. Arhats and their images have been worshiped in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), however their popularity increased dramatically in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) along with the growing influence of Zen Buddhism.
The early Chinese and Japanese painters of arhats and their audiences must have believed these images to resemble actual Buddhist elders in ancient India. Today, they are perhaps more striking for their strange, eccentric, and exoticized appearances. The gap between the real historical sages and their imaginative portrayal in painting makes this a truly fascinating subject of East Asian Buddhist art.

Important Cultural Property
Sixteen Arhats
Dairen-ji Temple, Shiga

During the summer season, the Medieval Paintings gallery presents a selection of decorated fan paintings. Fans have played an important role in the lives of Japanese people since ancient times. Used casually in daily life for cooling off, fans are also employed in many ritual and formal occasions and continue to serve a variety of functions today. The foldable surface of a fan provides a dynamic and compact surface for a rich variety of painting subjects, and over time artists and craftsmen produced large numbers of luxury fans decorated with beautiful paintings that served as sophisticated objects of gift exchange in elite society. In addition to paintings, Zen priests and other cultured elites inscribed poetic verses on fans and exchanged them as a way of deepening relationships. Brushed by a diverse range of artists, the fans on view provide an invaluable window into the world of medieval Japanese painting.

Important Cultural Property
Fan with Tale of Calligrapher Wang Xizhi
Inscription by Daigaku Shūsū and Ishō Tokugan; painting by Josetsu
Kyoto National Museum

Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674) was born in Kyoto as the grandson of the virtuosic sixteenth-century master, Kano Eitoku (1543–1590). At age sixteen he became the official painter in attendance (goyō eshi) to the Tokugawa shogun and began to position himself as the pillar of the Kano house of painters. His elegant and sophisticated painting style marked a divergence from previous Kano painters, not only setting a new standard for his followers but also influencing the broader trajectory of the many diverse schools of painting that flourished in the Edo period (1615–1868).
As the official painter of the realm in close proximity to the center of power in Edo, Tan’yū would later be characterized by the art historian Okakura Tenshin as the “Ieyasu of the art world,” an allusion to the first Tokugawa shogun. This exhibition presents highlights of Tan’yū’s career, displayed in the city of his birth, Kyoto.

Important Cultural Property
Pine Trees of the Four Seasons (Left Screen)
By Kano Tan’yū
Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto

The lotus has long been a favored motif in Chinese painting. Unstained by the muddy waters of its surroundings, the flower symbolizes purity and the ideal of freedom from worldly affairs. In his poetic essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” the eleventh-century philosopher Zhou Dunyi famously contrasted the nobility of the peony and the reclusiveness of the chrysanthemum with the purity of the lotus, praising it as “gentleman among flowers.” In Buddhism also, the lotus blossoms in the Pure Land and adorns images of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This exhibition features a wide variety of Chinese paintings that portray this most virtuous and sacred of flowers. We hope that you take your time to admire each work as you decipher the meaning of the lotus.

Important Cultural Property
Egrets in a Lotus Pond (Right Scroll)
Kyoto National Museum

From ancient times through the Edo period (1615–1868), almost all subjects of Japanese sculpture were religious in nature. After Buddhism was introduced to Japan and became firmly established in the seventh century, the production of Buddhist statues flourished. Buddhist deities and their images often have origins in South Asia or Central Asia, and they were usually transmitted to Japan by way of China, bringing with them a complex array of foreign influences.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese sculpture is its use of wood as a primary material. Various modes of carving and other techniques—including joint-block construction (yosegi-zukuri) and inlaid crystal eyes—were developed in Japan to create these wood images.
Over time, the repeated introduction of new images from the Asian continent contributed to further stylistic transformations and innovations in Japan. The Japanese Buddhist sculptures on view here reflect various styles of different historical periods.

Thousand-Armed Kannon (Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteśvara) in Incense Container-Shaped Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

The Chūson-ji Sutras comprise two sets of Buddhist scriptures that were dedicated by members of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan and offered to Chūson-ji Temple in Hiraizumi in the twelfth century. Each set is composed of more than 5,000 volumes. The “Kiyohira Sutras” were commissioned by the first patriarch of the Ōshū Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056–1128) and are transcribed in gold and silver characters on indigo-dyed paper. These were supplemented by the “Hidehira Sutras,” which used only gold characters and were sponsored by the third clan chieftain Fujiwara no Hidehira (?–1187).
The Shingon Buddhist temple Hinōsan Kanshin-ji in Kawachinagano City preserves 216 volumes of Chūson-ji Sutras. Enjoy the glimmering brilliance of these sublimely decorated sutras that convey the former glory and faith of the Ōshū Fujiwara.

Important Cultural Property
The Method of Mañjuśrīʼs Fundamental Single-Word Dhāraṇī (Kiyohira Sutra)
Vow by Fujiwara no Kiyohira
Kanshin-ji Temple, Osaka

Water is a central motif in visual cultures throughout the world. Falling from the heavens as rain or snow, the life-giving element flows into rivers and seeps underground, allowing us to quench our thirst and irrigate the crops that sustain life. The beauty of its everchanging form responds to the passage of time and the shape of its vessel. As the substance of majestic oceans and rivers, it inspires the artistic creation of sublime landscape paintings and designs rich in symbolic resonance.
Flowing, swirling, splashing – this exhibition introduces a variety of styles for representing water as a motif in the designs of dyed and woven Japanese textiles. The textiles on display highlight designs that incorporate the refreshing atmosphere of the waterside and abstracted designs of blue ocean waves.

Hitoe (Unlined Kimono) with Sweetfish and Wild Pinks in the Rainy Season
Kyoto National Museum

The Muromachi period (1392–1573) could be called the cradle of Japanese civilization as we know it today. The culture of the nobility, which flourished in Kyoto during the Heian period (794–1185), blended together with the samurai culture originating in eastern Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the latest cultural developments from continental Asia. Following the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, Japan entered an eventful 240 years marked by the strife-torn Nanbokuchō period (1333–1392), during which there were two rival imperial courts; the stable rule of the Muromachi shogunate; and the chaos of prolonged civil war.
In this section, we present cast metalwork from this formative period in the form of mirrors and chime-like percussive instruments called kei (Ch: bianqing). In addition to relics of the aristocratic Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures of Kyoto, the exhibition features masterworks from regions throughout Japan that advanced while Kyoto fell into decline during the civil wars of the Nanbokuchō through Momoyama periods.

National Treasure
Mirror with Pines, Bamboo, and Pair of Cranes, from the Sacred Treasures of Asuka Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, ceremonial feasts called naorai are held following the completion of rituals, whereupon the food and drink offerings presented to the kami are consumed by divine spirits and the living alike. In Buddhism also, offerings of food and drink are made to Buddhist deities as part of ritual services, after which lay parishioners and other faithful dine together with the officiating priests. In some Zen monasteries, ritual offerings of meals and tea to a temple’s founder are followed by the consumption of those same offerings.
Beautiful tableware made of lacquer is an indispensable part of these ritualized meals. Likewise, the enjoyment of a meal and the pouring of drinks can be seen wherever people gather, whether at a wedding or funeral, seasonal festivities like the viewing of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, or even a day out at the theater. Take the time to revel in Japan’s rich culture of feasting through the lacquerware that transformed festive dining into sublime events.

Portable Picnic Case with Gagaku Court Music Designs
Kyoto National Museum

Ceramics are prized not only for their beauty but also for their uses as dishes and in other quotidian functions. East Asian ceramics have a particularly wide range of patterns, forms, colors, and applications. They can incorporate vastly different materials and techniques, resulting in wares as diverse as earthenware or porcelain, with distinguishing characteristics deriving from the types of clay, the glazes, the décor, and the firing techniques employed at the site of their production. This gallery features a variety of ceramics from Japan, China, and the Korean Peninsula, pieces exemplifying the distinctive qualities and assets of each kiln site.

Tomb Figure of a Court Lady
Kyoto National Museum

The term hakubyō means “white drawing” and refers to a style of monochrome image that uses almost exclusively ink linework. This developed out of a tradition of East Asian painting that emphasizes the beauty of paper and line. In Japan, well known works such as the National Treasure Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) employ great variation in brushwork and ink gradation, while other hakubyō works that emerged from the refined aesthetics of court culture employ fine, uniform lines in a fluid hand. These latter works form a genre known as hakubyō Yamato-e, or Japanese-style monochrome painting, which reached its pinnacle in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). As the Kamakura period came to an end, an increasing number of more intimate works with looser linework began to be made, leading to a new era of monochrome painting.

Tale of the Princess (Chūgū monogatari)

Arhats, called rakan in Japanese, are sage-like high priests of Buddhism who were believed to have lived in ancient India. They were first pictorialized in China and their images later imported to Japan, where Japanese depictions usually maintain a distinctive, Chinese-influenced style. Arhats and their images have been worshiped in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), however their popularity increased dramatically in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) along with the growing influence of Zen Buddhism.
The early Chinese and Japanese painters of arhats and their audiences must have believed these images to resemble actual Buddhist elders in ancient India. Today, they are perhaps more striking for their strange, eccentric, and exoticized appearances. The gap between the real historical sages and their imaginative portrayal in painting makes this a truly fascinating subject of East Asian Buddhist art.

Important Cultural Property
Sixteen Arhats
Dairen-ji Temple, Shiga

During the summer season, the Medieval Paintings gallery presents a selection of decorated fan paintings. Fans have played an important role in the lives of Japanese people since ancient times. Used casually in daily life for cooling off, fans are also employed in many ritual and formal occasions and continue to serve a variety of functions today. The foldable surface of a fan provides a dynamic and compact surface for a rich variety of painting subjects, and over time artists and craftsmen produced large numbers of luxury fans decorated with beautiful paintings that served as sophisticated objects of gift exchange in elite society. In addition to paintings, Zen priests and other cultured elites inscribed poetic verses on fans and exchanged them as a way of deepening relationships. Brushed by a diverse range of artists, the fans on view provide an invaluable window into the world of medieval Japanese painting.

Important Cultural Property
Fan with Tale of Calligrapher Wang Xizhi
Inscription by Daigaku Shūsū and Ishō Tokugan; painting by Josetsu
Kyoto National Museum

Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674) was born in Kyoto as the grandson of the virtuosic sixteenth-century master, Kano Eitoku (1543–1590). At age sixteen he became the official painter in attendance (goyō eshi) to the Tokugawa shogun and began to position himself as the pillar of the Kano house of painters. His elegant and sophisticated painting style marked a divergence from previous Kano painters, not only setting a new standard for his followers but also influencing the broader trajectory of the many diverse schools of painting that flourished in the Edo period (1615–1868).
As the official painter of the realm in close proximity to the center of power in Edo, Tan’yū would later be characterized by the art historian Okakura Tenshin as the “Ieyasu of the art world,” an allusion to the first Tokugawa shogun. This exhibition presents highlights of Tan’yū’s career, displayed in the city of his birth, Kyoto.

Important Cultural Property
Pine Trees of the Four Seasons (Left Screen)
By Kano Tan’yū
Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto

The lotus has long been a favored motif in Chinese painting. Unstained by the muddy waters of its surroundings, the flower symbolizes purity and the ideal of freedom from worldly affairs. In his poetic essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” the eleventh-century philosopher Zhou Dunyi famously contrasted the nobility of the peony and the reclusiveness of the chrysanthemum with the purity of the lotus, praising it as “gentleman among flowers.” In Buddhism also, the lotus blossoms in the Pure Land and adorns images of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This exhibition features a wide variety of Chinese paintings that portray this most virtuous and sacred of flowers. We hope that you take your time to admire each work as you decipher the meaning of the lotus.

Important Cultural Property
Egrets in a Lotus Pond (Right Scroll)
Kyoto National Museum

From ancient times through the Edo period (1615–1868), almost all subjects of Japanese sculpture were religious in nature. After Buddhism was introduced to Japan and became firmly established in the seventh century, the production of Buddhist statues flourished. Buddhist deities and their images often have origins in South Asia or Central Asia, and they were usually transmitted to Japan by way of China, bringing with them a complex array of foreign influences.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese sculpture is its use of wood as a primary material. Various modes of carving and other techniques—including joint-block construction (yosegi-zukuri) and inlaid crystal eyes—were developed in Japan to create these wood images.
Over time, the repeated introduction of new images from the Asian continent contributed to further stylistic transformations and innovations in Japan. The Japanese Buddhist sculptures on view here reflect various styles of different historical periods.

Thousand-Armed Kannon (Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteśvara) in Incense Container-Shaped Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

The Chūson-ji Sutras comprise two sets of Buddhist scriptures that were dedicated by members of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan and offered to Chūson-ji Temple in Hiraizumi in the twelfth century. Each set is composed of more than 5,000 volumes. The “Kiyohira Sutras” were commissioned by the first patriarch of the Ōshū Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056–1128) and are transcribed in gold and silver characters on indigo-dyed paper. These were supplemented by the “Hidehira Sutras,” which used only gold characters and were sponsored by the third clan chieftain Fujiwara no Hidehira (?–1187).
The Shingon Buddhist temple Hinōsan Kanshin-ji in Kawachinagano City preserves 216 volumes of Chūson-ji Sutras. Enjoy the glimmering brilliance of these sublimely decorated sutras that convey the former glory and faith of the Ōshū Fujiwara.

Important Cultural Property
The Method of Mañjuśrīʼs Fundamental Single-Word Dhāraṇī (Kiyohira Sutra)
Vow by Fujiwara no Kiyohira
Kanshin-ji Temple, Osaka

Water is a central motif in visual cultures throughout the world. Falling from the heavens as rain or snow, the life-giving element flows into rivers and seeps underground, allowing us to quench our thirst and irrigate the crops that sustain life. The beauty of its everchanging form responds to the passage of time and the shape of its vessel. As the substance of majestic oceans and rivers, it inspires the artistic creation of sublime landscape paintings and designs rich in symbolic resonance.
Flowing, swirling, splashing – this exhibition introduces a variety of styles for representing water as a motif in the designs of dyed and woven Japanese textiles. The textiles on display highlight designs that incorporate the refreshing atmosphere of the waterside and abstracted designs of blue ocean waves.

Hitoe (Unlined Kimono) with Sweetfish and Wild Pinks in the Rainy Season
Kyoto National Museum

The Muromachi period (1392–1573) could be called the cradle of Japanese civilization as we know it today. The culture of the nobility, which flourished in Kyoto during the Heian period (794–1185), blended together with the samurai culture originating in eastern Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the latest cultural developments from continental Asia. Following the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, Japan entered an eventful 240 years marked by the strife-torn Nanbokuchō period (1333–1392), during which there were two rival imperial courts; the stable rule of the Muromachi shogunate; and the chaos of prolonged civil war.
In this section, we present cast metalwork from this formative period in the form of mirrors and chime-like percussive instruments called kei (Ch: bianqing). In addition to relics of the aristocratic Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures of Kyoto, the exhibition features masterworks from regions throughout Japan that advanced while Kyoto fell into decline during the civil wars of the Nanbokuchō through Momoyama periods.

National Treasure
Mirror with Pines, Bamboo, and Pair of Cranes, from the Sacred Treasures of Asuka Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, ceremonial feasts called naorai are held following the completion of rituals, whereupon the food and drink offerings presented to the kami are consumed by divine spirits and the living alike. In Buddhism also, offerings of food and drink are made to Buddhist deities as part of ritual services, after which lay parishioners and other faithful dine together with the officiating priests. In some Zen monasteries, ritual offerings of meals and tea to a temple’s founder are followed by the consumption of those same offerings.
Beautiful tableware made of lacquer is an indispensable part of these ritualized meals. Likewise, the enjoyment of a meal and the pouring of drinks can be seen wherever people gather, whether at a wedding or funeral, seasonal festivities like the viewing of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, or even a day out at the theater. Take the time to revel in Japan’s rich culture of feasting through the lacquerware that transformed festive dining into sublime events.

Portable Picnic Case with Gagaku Court Music Designs
Kyoto National Museum

Ceramics are prized not only for their beauty but also for their uses as dishes and in other quotidian functions. East Asian ceramics have a particularly wide range of patterns, forms, colors, and applications. They can incorporate vastly different materials and techniques, resulting in wares as diverse as earthenware or porcelain, with distinguishing characteristics deriving from the types of clay, the glazes, the décor, and the firing techniques employed at the site of their production. This gallery features a variety of ceramics from Japan, China, and the Korean Peninsula, pieces exemplifying the distinctive qualities and assets of each kiln site.

Tomb Figure of a Court Lady
Kyoto National Museum

Kofun-period culture arose in the Kinai region in the middle of the third century, and by the fourth century common features could be seen stretching from the northeastern Tohoku region to the southwestern island of Kyushu. These included similarities in residences and the shapes of keyhole-shaped tumuli called “kofun.” But by the fifth and sixth centuries, evidence of noticeable differences appeared in the styles of stone burial chambers and the burial goods contained in these tumuli.
Among these broader changes, the south-central region of Kyushu developed a unique burial culture independent of the Honshu and Shikoku regions. Prime examples include stone figures called sekijin and figures carved in relief that have been found mainly in Kumamoto and Fukuoka prefectures, as well as bracelets made from shell imported from oceans to the south, which were discovered in Miyazaki. This exhibition shows that, far from the popular image of regional uniformity, the Kumamoto and Miyazaki regions developed their own unique Kofun culture.

Shell Bracelet
From Ōtsubo Tomb No. 1, Miyazaki
Saitobaru Archaeological Museum of Miyazaki Prefecture

Object with Incised Lines and Arcs
From Kunigoshi Tumulus, Kumamoto
Kumamoto Prefectural Decorated Tumulus Museum

The term hakubyō means “white drawing” and refers to a style of monochrome image that uses almost exclusively ink linework. This developed out of a tradition of East Asian painting that emphasizes the beauty of paper and line. In Japan, well known works such as the National Treasure Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) employ great variation in brushwork and ink gradation, while other hakubyō works that emerged from the refined aesthetics of court culture employ fine, uniform lines in a fluid hand. These latter works form a genre known as hakubyō Yamato-e, or Japanese-style monochrome painting, which reached its pinnacle in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). As the Kamakura period came to an end, an increasing number of more intimate works with looser linework began to be made, leading to a new era of monochrome painting.

Tale of the Princess (Chūgū monogatari)

Arhats, called rakan in Japanese, are sage-like high priests of Buddhism who were believed to have lived in ancient India. They were first pictorialized in China and their images later imported to Japan, where Japanese depictions usually maintain a distinctive, Chinese-influenced style. Arhats and their images have been worshiped in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), however their popularity increased dramatically in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) along with the growing influence of Zen Buddhism.
The early Chinese and Japanese painters of arhats and their audiences must have believed these images to resemble actual Buddhist elders in ancient India. Today, they are perhaps more striking for their strange, eccentric, and exoticized appearances. The gap between the real historical sages and their imaginative portrayal in painting makes this a truly fascinating subject of East Asian Buddhist art.

Important Cultural Property
Sixteen Arhats
Dairen-ji Temple, Shiga

During the summer season, the Medieval Paintings gallery presents a selection of decorated fan paintings. Fans have played an important role in the lives of Japanese people since ancient times. Used casually in daily life for cooling off, fans are also employed in many ritual and formal occasions and continue to serve a variety of functions today. The foldable surface of a fan provides a dynamic and compact surface for a rich variety of painting subjects, and over time artists and craftsmen produced large numbers of luxury fans decorated with beautiful paintings that served as sophisticated objects of gift exchange in elite society. In addition to paintings, Zen priests and other cultured elites inscribed poetic verses on fans and exchanged them as a way of deepening relationships. Brushed by a diverse range of artists, the fans on view provide an invaluable window into the world of medieval Japanese painting.

Important Cultural Property
Fan with Tale of Calligrapher Wang Xizhi
Inscription by Daigaku Shūsū and Ishō Tokugan; painting by Josetsu
Kyoto National Museum

Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674) was born in Kyoto as the grandson of the virtuosic sixteenth-century master, Kano Eitoku (1543–1590). At age sixteen he became the official painter in attendance (goyō eshi) to the Tokugawa shogun and began to position himself as the pillar of the Kano house of painters. His elegant and sophisticated painting style marked a divergence from previous Kano painters, not only setting a new standard for his followers but also influencing the broader trajectory of the many diverse schools of painting that flourished in the Edo period (1615–1868).
As the official painter of the realm in close proximity to the center of power in Edo, Tan’yū would later be characterized by the art historian Okakura Tenshin as the “Ieyasu of the art world,” an allusion to the first Tokugawa shogun. This exhibition presents highlights of Tan’yū’s career, displayed in the city of his birth, Kyoto.

Important Cultural Property
Pine Trees of the Four Seasons (Left Screen)
By Kano Tan’yū
Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto

The lotus has long been a favored motif in Chinese painting. Unstained by the muddy waters of its surroundings, the flower symbolizes purity and the ideal of freedom from worldly affairs. In his poetic essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” the eleventh-century philosopher Zhou Dunyi famously contrasted the nobility of the peony and the reclusiveness of the chrysanthemum with the purity of the lotus, praising it as “gentleman among flowers.” In Buddhism also, the lotus blossoms in the Pure Land and adorns images of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This exhibition features a wide variety of Chinese paintings that portray this most virtuous and sacred of flowers. We hope that you take your time to admire each work as you decipher the meaning of the lotus.

Important Cultural Property
Egrets in a Lotus Pond (Right Scroll)
Kyoto National Museum

From ancient times through the Edo period (1615–1868), almost all subjects of Japanese sculpture were religious in nature. After Buddhism was introduced to Japan and became firmly established in the seventh century, the production of Buddhist statues flourished. Buddhist deities and their images often have origins in South Asia or Central Asia, and they were usually transmitted to Japan by way of China, bringing with them a complex array of foreign influences.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese sculpture is its use of wood as a primary material. Various modes of carving and other techniques—including joint-block construction (yosegi-zukuri) and inlaid crystal eyes—were developed in Japan to create these wood images.
Over time, the repeated introduction of new images from the Asian continent contributed to further stylistic transformations and innovations in Japan. The Japanese Buddhist sculptures on view here reflect various styles of different historical periods.

Thousand-Armed Kannon (Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteśvara) in Incense Container-Shaped Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

The Chūson-ji Sutras comprise two sets of Buddhist scriptures that were dedicated by members of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan and offered to Chūson-ji Temple in Hiraizumi in the twelfth century. Each set is composed of more than 5,000 volumes. The “Kiyohira Sutras” were commissioned by the first patriarch of the Ōshū Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056–1128) and are transcribed in gold and silver characters on indigo-dyed paper. These were supplemented by the “Hidehira Sutras,” which used only gold characters and were sponsored by the third clan chieftain Fujiwara no Hidehira (?–1187).
The Shingon Buddhist temple Hinōsan Kanshin-ji in Kawachinagano City preserves 216 volumes of Chūson-ji Sutras. Enjoy the glimmering brilliance of these sublimely decorated sutras that convey the former glory and faith of the Ōshū Fujiwara.

Important Cultural Property
The Method of Mañjuśrīʼs Fundamental Single-Word Dhāraṇī (Kiyohira Sutra)
Vow by Fujiwara no Kiyohira
Kanshin-ji Temple, Osaka

Water is a central motif in visual cultures throughout the world. Falling from the heavens as rain or snow, the life-giving element flows into rivers and seeps underground, allowing us to quench our thirst and irrigate the crops that sustain life. The beauty of its everchanging form responds to the passage of time and the shape of its vessel. As the substance of majestic oceans and rivers, it inspires the artistic creation of sublime landscape paintings and designs rich in symbolic resonance.
Flowing, swirling, splashing – this exhibition introduces a variety of styles for representing water as a motif in the designs of dyed and woven Japanese textiles. The textiles on display highlight designs that incorporate the refreshing atmosphere of the waterside and abstracted designs of blue ocean waves.

Hitoe (Unlined Kimono) with Sweetfish and Wild Pinks in the Rainy Season
Kyoto National Museum

The Muromachi period (1392–1573) could be called the cradle of Japanese civilization as we know it today. The culture of the nobility, which flourished in Kyoto during the Heian period (794–1185), blended together with the samurai culture originating in eastern Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the latest cultural developments from continental Asia. Following the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, Japan entered an eventful 240 years marked by the strife-torn Nanbokuchō period (1333–1392), during which there were two rival imperial courts; the stable rule of the Muromachi shogunate; and the chaos of prolonged civil war.
In this section, we present cast metalwork from this formative period in the form of mirrors and chime-like percussive instruments called kei (Ch: bianqing). In addition to relics of the aristocratic Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures of Kyoto, the exhibition features masterworks from regions throughout Japan that advanced while Kyoto fell into decline during the civil wars of the Nanbokuchō through Momoyama periods.

National Treasure
Mirror with Pines, Bamboo, and Pair of Cranes, from the Sacred Treasures of Asuka Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, ceremonial feasts called naorai are held following the completion of rituals, whereupon the food and drink offerings presented to the kami are consumed by divine spirits and the living alike. In Buddhism also, offerings of food and drink are made to Buddhist deities as part of ritual services, after which lay parishioners and other faithful dine together with the officiating priests. In some Zen monasteries, ritual offerings of meals and tea to a temple’s founder are followed by the consumption of those same offerings.
Beautiful tableware made of lacquer is an indispensable part of these ritualized meals. Likewise, the enjoyment of a meal and the pouring of drinks can be seen wherever people gather, whether at a wedding or funeral, seasonal festivities like the viewing of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, or even a day out at the theater. Take the time to revel in Japan’s rich culture of feasting through the lacquerware that transformed festive dining into sublime events.

Portable Picnic Case with Gagaku Court Music Designs
Kyoto National Museum

Ceramics are prized not only for their beauty but also for their uses as dishes and in other quotidian functions. East Asian ceramics have a particularly wide range of patterns, forms, colors, and applications. They can incorporate vastly different materials and techniques, resulting in wares as diverse as earthenware or porcelain, with distinguishing characteristics deriving from the types of clay, the glazes, the décor, and the firing techniques employed at the site of their production. This gallery features a variety of ceramics from Japan, China, and the Korean Peninsula, pieces exemplifying the distinctive qualities and assets of each kiln site.

Tomb Figure of a Court Lady
Kyoto National Museum

Kofun-period culture arose in the Kinai region in the middle of the third century, and by the fourth century common features could be seen stretching from the northeastern Tohoku region to the southwestern island of Kyushu. These included similarities in residences and the shapes of keyhole-shaped tumuli called “kofun.” But by the fifth and sixth centuries, evidence of noticeable differences appeared in the styles of stone burial chambers and the burial goods contained in these tumuli.
Among these broader changes, the south-central region of Kyushu developed a unique burial culture independent of the Honshu and Shikoku regions. Prime examples include stone figures called sekijin and figures carved in relief that have been found mainly in Kumamoto and Fukuoka prefectures, as well as bracelets made from shell imported from oceans to the south, which were discovered in Miyazaki. This exhibition shows that, far from the popular image of regional uniformity, the Kumamoto and Miyazaki regions developed their own unique Kofun culture.

Shell Bracelet
From Ōtsubo Tomb No. 1, Miyazaki
Saitobaru Archaeological Museum of Miyazaki Prefecture

Object with Incised Lines and Arcs
From Kunigoshi Tumulus, Kumamoto
Kumamoto Prefectural Decorated Tumulus Museum

The term hakubyō means “white drawing” and refers to a style of monochrome image that uses almost exclusively ink linework. This developed out of a tradition of East Asian painting that emphasizes the beauty of paper and line. In Japan, well known works such as the National Treasure Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) employ great variation in brushwork and ink gradation, while other hakubyō works that emerged from the refined aesthetics of court culture employ fine, uniform lines in a fluid hand. These latter works form a genre known as hakubyō Yamato-e, or Japanese-style monochrome painting, which reached its pinnacle in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). As the Kamakura period came to an end, an increasing number of more intimate works with looser linework began to be made, leading to a new era of monochrome painting.

Tale of the Princess (Chūgū monogatari)

Arhats, called rakan in Japanese, are sage-like high priests of Buddhism who were believed to have lived in ancient India. They were first pictorialized in China and their images later imported to Japan, where Japanese depictions usually maintain a distinctive, Chinese-influenced style. Arhats and their images have been worshiped in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), however their popularity increased dramatically in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) along with the growing influence of Zen Buddhism.
The early Chinese and Japanese painters of arhats and their audiences must have believed these images to resemble actual Buddhist elders in ancient India. Today, they are perhaps more striking for their strange, eccentric, and exoticized appearances. The gap between the real historical sages and their imaginative portrayal in painting makes this a truly fascinating subject of East Asian Buddhist art.

Important Cultural Property
Sixteen Arhats
Dairen-ji Temple, Shiga

During the summer season, the Medieval Paintings gallery presents a selection of decorated fan paintings. Fans have played an important role in the lives of Japanese people since ancient times. Used casually in daily life for cooling off, fans are also employed in many ritual and formal occasions and continue to serve a variety of functions today. The foldable surface of a fan provides a dynamic and compact surface for a rich variety of painting subjects, and over time artists and craftsmen produced large numbers of luxury fans decorated with beautiful paintings that served as sophisticated objects of gift exchange in elite society. In addition to paintings, Zen priests and other cultured elites inscribed poetic verses on fans and exchanged them as a way of deepening relationships. Brushed by a diverse range of artists, the fans on view provide an invaluable window into the world of medieval Japanese painting.

Important Cultural Property
Fan with Tale of Calligrapher Wang Xizhi
Inscription by Daigaku Shūsū and Ishō Tokugan; painting by Josetsu
Kyoto National Museum

Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674) was born in Kyoto as the grandson of the virtuosic sixteenth-century master, Kano Eitoku (1543–1590). At age sixteen he became the official painter in attendance (goyō eshi) to the Tokugawa shogun and began to position himself as the pillar of the Kano house of painters. His elegant and sophisticated painting style marked a divergence from previous Kano painters, not only setting a new standard for his followers but also influencing the broader trajectory of the many diverse schools of painting that flourished in the Edo period (1615–1868).
As the official painter of the realm in close proximity to the center of power in Edo, Tan’yū would later be characterized by the art historian Okakura Tenshin as the “Ieyasu of the art world,” an allusion to the first Tokugawa shogun. This exhibition presents highlights of Tan’yū’s career, displayed in the city of his birth, Kyoto.

Important Cultural Property
Pine Trees of the Four Seasons (Left Screen)
By Kano Tan’yū
Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto

The lotus has long been a favored motif in Chinese painting. Unstained by the muddy waters of its surroundings, the flower symbolizes purity and the ideal of freedom from worldly affairs. In his poetic essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” the eleventh-century philosopher Zhou Dunyi famously contrasted the nobility of the peony and the reclusiveness of the chrysanthemum with the purity of the lotus, praising it as “gentleman among flowers.” In Buddhism also, the lotus blossoms in the Pure Land and adorns images of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This exhibition features a wide variety of Chinese paintings that portray this most virtuous and sacred of flowers. We hope that you take your time to admire each work as you decipher the meaning of the lotus.

Important Cultural Property
Egrets in a Lotus Pond (Right Scroll)
Kyoto National Museum

From ancient times through the Edo period (1615–1868), almost all subjects of Japanese sculpture were religious in nature. After Buddhism was introduced to Japan and became firmly established in the seventh century, the production of Buddhist statues flourished. Buddhist deities and their images often have origins in South Asia or Central Asia, and they were usually transmitted to Japan by way of China, bringing with them a complex array of foreign influences.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese sculpture is its use of wood as a primary material. Various modes of carving and other techniques—including joint-block construction (yosegi-zukuri) and inlaid crystal eyes—were developed in Japan to create these wood images.
Over time, the repeated introduction of new images from the Asian continent contributed to further stylistic transformations and innovations in Japan. The Japanese Buddhist sculptures on view here reflect various styles of different historical periods.

Thousand-Armed Kannon (Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteśvara) in Incense Container-Shaped Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

The Chūson-ji Sutras comprise two sets of Buddhist scriptures that were dedicated by members of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan and offered to Chūson-ji Temple in Hiraizumi in the twelfth century. Each set is composed of more than 5,000 volumes. The “Kiyohira Sutras” were commissioned by the first patriarch of the Ōshū Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056–1128) and are transcribed in gold and silver characters on indigo-dyed paper. These were supplemented by the “Hidehira Sutras,” which used only gold characters and were sponsored by the third clan chieftain Fujiwara no Hidehira (?–1187).
The Shingon Buddhist temple Hinōsan Kanshin-ji in Kawachinagano City preserves 216 volumes of Chūson-ji Sutras. Enjoy the glimmering brilliance of these sublimely decorated sutras that convey the former glory and faith of the Ōshū Fujiwara.

Important Cultural Property
The Method of Mañjuśrīʼs Fundamental Single-Word Dhāraṇī (Kiyohira Sutra)
Vow by Fujiwara no Kiyohira
Kanshin-ji Temple, Osaka

Water is a central motif in visual cultures throughout the world. Falling from the heavens as rain or snow, the life-giving element flows into rivers and seeps underground, allowing us to quench our thirst and irrigate the crops that sustain life. The beauty of its everchanging form responds to the passage of time and the shape of its vessel. As the substance of majestic oceans and rivers, it inspires the artistic creation of sublime landscape paintings and designs rich in symbolic resonance.
Flowing, swirling, splashing – this exhibition introduces a variety of styles for representing water as a motif in the designs of dyed and woven Japanese textiles. The textiles on display highlight designs that incorporate the refreshing atmosphere of the waterside and abstracted designs of blue ocean waves.

Hitoe (Unlined Kimono) with Sweetfish and Wild Pinks in the Rainy Season
Kyoto National Museum

The Muromachi period (1392–1573) could be called the cradle of Japanese civilization as we know it today. The culture of the nobility, which flourished in Kyoto during the Heian period (794–1185), blended together with the samurai culture originating in eastern Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the latest cultural developments from continental Asia. Following the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, Japan entered an eventful 240 years marked by the strife-torn Nanbokuchō period (1333–1392), during which there were two rival imperial courts; the stable rule of the Muromachi shogunate; and the chaos of prolonged civil war.
In this section, we present cast metalwork from this formative period in the form of mirrors and chime-like percussive instruments called kei (Ch: bianqing). In addition to relics of the aristocratic Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures of Kyoto, the exhibition features masterworks from regions throughout Japan that advanced while Kyoto fell into decline during the civil wars of the Nanbokuchō through Momoyama periods.

National Treasure
Mirror with Pines, Bamboo, and Pair of Cranes, from the Sacred Treasures of Asuka Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, ceremonial feasts called naorai are held following the completion of rituals, whereupon the food and drink offerings presented to the kami are consumed by divine spirits and the living alike. In Buddhism also, offerings of food and drink are made to Buddhist deities as part of ritual services, after which lay parishioners and other faithful dine together with the officiating priests. In some Zen monasteries, ritual offerings of meals and tea to a temple’s founder are followed by the consumption of those same offerings.
Beautiful tableware made of lacquer is an indispensable part of these ritualized meals. Likewise, the enjoyment of a meal and the pouring of drinks can be seen wherever people gather, whether at a wedding or funeral, seasonal festivities like the viewing of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, or even a day out at the theater. Take the time to revel in Japan’s rich culture of feasting through the lacquerware that transformed festive dining into sublime events.

Portable Picnic Case with Gagaku Court Music Designs
Kyoto National Museum

Ceramics are prized not only for their beauty but also for their uses as dishes and in other quotidian functions. East Asian ceramics have a particularly wide range of patterns, forms, colors, and applications. They can incorporate vastly different materials and techniques, resulting in wares as diverse as earthenware or porcelain, with distinguishing characteristics deriving from the types of clay, the glazes, the décor, and the firing techniques employed at the site of their production. This gallery features a variety of ceramics from Japan, China, and the Korean Peninsula, pieces exemplifying the distinctive qualities and assets of each kiln site.

Tomb Figure of a Court Lady
Kyoto National Museum

Kofun-period culture arose in the Kinai region in the middle of the third century, and by the fourth century common features could be seen stretching from the northeastern Tohoku region to the southwestern island of Kyushu. These included similarities in residences and the shapes of keyhole-shaped tumuli called “kofun.” But by the fifth and sixth centuries, evidence of noticeable differences appeared in the styles of stone burial chambers and the burial goods contained in these tumuli.
Among these broader changes, the south-central region of Kyushu developed a unique burial culture independent of the Honshu and Shikoku regions. Prime examples include stone figures called sekijin and figures carved in relief that have been found mainly in Kumamoto and Fukuoka prefectures, as well as bracelets made from shell imported from oceans to the south, which were discovered in Miyazaki. This exhibition shows that, far from the popular image of regional uniformity, the Kumamoto and Miyazaki regions developed their own unique Kofun culture.

Shell Bracelet
From Ōtsubo Tomb No. 1, Miyazaki
Saitobaru Archaeological Museum of Miyazaki Prefecture

Object with Incised Lines and Arcs
From Kunigoshi Tumulus, Kumamoto
Kumamoto Prefectural Decorated Tumulus Museum

The term hakubyō means “white drawing” and refers to a style of monochrome image that uses almost exclusively ink linework. This developed out of a tradition of East Asian painting that emphasizes the beauty of paper and line. In Japan, well known works such as the National Treasure Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) employ great variation in brushwork and ink gradation, while other hakubyō works that emerged from the refined aesthetics of court culture employ fine, uniform lines in a fluid hand. These latter works form a genre known as hakubyō Yamato-e, or Japanese-style monochrome painting, which reached its pinnacle in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). As the Kamakura period came to an end, an increasing number of more intimate works with looser linework began to be made, leading to a new era of monochrome painting.

Tale of the Princess (Chūgū monogatari)

Arhats, called rakan in Japanese, are sage-like high priests of Buddhism who were believed to have lived in ancient India. They were first pictorialized in China and their images later imported to Japan, where Japanese depictions usually maintain a distinctive, Chinese-influenced style. Arhats and their images have been worshiped in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), however their popularity increased dramatically in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) along with the growing influence of Zen Buddhism.
The early Chinese and Japanese painters of arhats and their audiences must have believed these images to resemble actual Buddhist elders in ancient India. Today, they are perhaps more striking for their strange, eccentric, and exoticized appearances. The gap between the real historical sages and their imaginative portrayal in painting makes this a truly fascinating subject of East Asian Buddhist art.

Important Cultural Property
Sixteen Arhats
Dairen-ji Temple, Shiga

During the summer season, the Medieval Paintings gallery presents a selection of decorated fan paintings. Fans have played an important role in the lives of Japanese people since ancient times. Used casually in daily life for cooling off, fans are also employed in many ritual and formal occasions and continue to serve a variety of functions today. The foldable surface of a fan provides a dynamic and compact surface for a rich variety of painting subjects, and over time artists and craftsmen produced large numbers of luxury fans decorated with beautiful paintings that served as sophisticated objects of gift exchange in elite society. In addition to paintings, Zen priests and other cultured elites inscribed poetic verses on fans and exchanged them as a way of deepening relationships. Brushed by a diverse range of artists, the fans on view provide an invaluable window into the world of medieval Japanese painting.

Important Cultural Property
Fan with Tale of Calligrapher Wang Xizhi
Inscription by Daigaku Shūsū and Ishō Tokugan; painting by Josetsu
Kyoto National Museum

Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674) was born in Kyoto as the grandson of the virtuosic sixteenth-century master, Kano Eitoku (1543–1590). At age sixteen he became the official painter in attendance (goyō eshi) to the Tokugawa shogun and began to position himself as the pillar of the Kano house of painters. His elegant and sophisticated painting style marked a divergence from previous Kano painters, not only setting a new standard for his followers but also influencing the broader trajectory of the many diverse schools of painting that flourished in the Edo period (1615–1868).
As the official painter of the realm in close proximity to the center of power in Edo, Tan’yū would later be characterized by the art historian Okakura Tenshin as the “Ieyasu of the art world,” an allusion to the first Tokugawa shogun. This exhibition presents highlights of Tan’yū’s career, displayed in the city of his birth, Kyoto.

Important Cultural Property
Pine Trees of the Four Seasons (Left Screen)
By Kano Tan’yū
Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto

The lotus has long been a favored motif in Chinese painting. Unstained by the muddy waters of its surroundings, the flower symbolizes purity and the ideal of freedom from worldly affairs. In his poetic essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” the eleventh-century philosopher Zhou Dunyi famously contrasted the nobility of the peony and the reclusiveness of the chrysanthemum with the purity of the lotus, praising it as “gentleman among flowers.” In Buddhism also, the lotus blossoms in the Pure Land and adorns images of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This exhibition features a wide variety of Chinese paintings that portray this most virtuous and sacred of flowers. We hope that you take your time to admire each work as you decipher the meaning of the lotus.

Important Cultural Property
Egrets in a Lotus Pond (Right Scroll)
Kyoto National Museum

From ancient times through the Edo period (1615–1868), almost all subjects of Japanese sculpture were religious in nature. After Buddhism was introduced to Japan and became firmly established in the seventh century, the production of Buddhist statues flourished. Buddhist deities and their images often have origins in South Asia or Central Asia, and they were usually transmitted to Japan by way of China, bringing with them a complex array of foreign influences.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese sculpture is its use of wood as a primary material. Various modes of carving and other techniques—including joint-block construction (yosegi-zukuri) and inlaid crystal eyes—were developed in Japan to create these wood images.
Over time, the repeated introduction of new images from the Asian continent contributed to further stylistic transformations and innovations in Japan. The Japanese Buddhist sculptures on view here reflect various styles of different historical periods.

Thousand-Armed Kannon (Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteśvara) in Incense Container-Shaped Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

The Chūson-ji Sutras comprise two sets of Buddhist scriptures that were dedicated by members of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan and offered to Chūson-ji Temple in Hiraizumi in the twelfth century. Each set is composed of more than 5,000 volumes. The “Kiyohira Sutras” were commissioned by the first patriarch of the Ōshū Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056–1128) and are transcribed in gold and silver characters on indigo-dyed paper. These were supplemented by the “Hidehira Sutras,” which used only gold characters and were sponsored by the third clan chieftain Fujiwara no Hidehira (?–1187).
The Shingon Buddhist temple Hinōsan Kanshin-ji in Kawachinagano City preserves 216 volumes of Chūson-ji Sutras. Enjoy the glimmering brilliance of these sublimely decorated sutras that convey the former glory and faith of the Ōshū Fujiwara.

Important Cultural Property
The Method of Mañjuśrīʼs Fundamental Single-Word Dhāraṇī (Kiyohira Sutra)
Vow by Fujiwara no Kiyohira
Kanshin-ji Temple, Osaka

Water is a central motif in visual cultures throughout the world. Falling from the heavens as rain or snow, the life-giving element flows into rivers and seeps underground, allowing us to quench our thirst and irrigate the crops that sustain life. The beauty of its everchanging form responds to the passage of time and the shape of its vessel. As the substance of majestic oceans and rivers, it inspires the artistic creation of sublime landscape paintings and designs rich in symbolic resonance.
Flowing, swirling, splashing – this exhibition introduces a variety of styles for representing water as a motif in the designs of dyed and woven Japanese textiles. The textiles on display highlight designs that incorporate the refreshing atmosphere of the waterside and abstracted designs of blue ocean waves.

Hitoe (Unlined Kimono) with Sweetfish and Wild Pinks in the Rainy Season
Kyoto National Museum

The Muromachi period (1392–1573) could be called the cradle of Japanese civilization as we know it today. The culture of the nobility, which flourished in Kyoto during the Heian period (794–1185), blended together with the samurai culture originating in eastern Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the latest cultural developments from continental Asia. Following the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, Japan entered an eventful 240 years marked by the strife-torn Nanbokuchō period (1333–1392), during which there were two rival imperial courts; the stable rule of the Muromachi shogunate; and the chaos of prolonged civil war.
In this section, we present cast metalwork from this formative period in the form of mirrors and chime-like percussive instruments called kei (Ch: bianqing). In addition to relics of the aristocratic Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures of Kyoto, the exhibition features masterworks from regions throughout Japan that advanced while Kyoto fell into decline during the civil wars of the Nanbokuchō through Momoyama periods.

National Treasure
Mirror with Pines, Bamboo, and Pair of Cranes, from the Sacred Treasures of Asuka Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, ceremonial feasts called naorai are held following the completion of rituals, whereupon the food and drink offerings presented to the kami are consumed by divine spirits and the living alike. In Buddhism also, offerings of food and drink are made to Buddhist deities as part of ritual services, after which lay parishioners and other faithful dine together with the officiating priests. In some Zen monasteries, ritual offerings of meals and tea to a temple’s founder are followed by the consumption of those same offerings.
Beautiful tableware made of lacquer is an indispensable part of these ritualized meals. Likewise, the enjoyment of a meal and the pouring of drinks can be seen wherever people gather, whether at a wedding or funeral, seasonal festivities like the viewing of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, or even a day out at the theater. Take the time to revel in Japan’s rich culture of feasting through the lacquerware that transformed festive dining into sublime events.

Portable Picnic Case with Gagaku Court Music Designs
Kyoto National Museum

Ceramics are prized not only for their beauty but also for their uses as dishes and in other quotidian functions. East Asian ceramics have a particularly wide range of patterns, forms, colors, and applications. They can incorporate vastly different materials and techniques, resulting in wares as diverse as earthenware or porcelain, with distinguishing characteristics deriving from the types of clay, the glazes, the décor, and the firing techniques employed at the site of their production. This gallery features a variety of ceramics from Japan, China, and the Korean Peninsula, pieces exemplifying the distinctive qualities and assets of each kiln site.

Tomb Figure of a Court Lady
Kyoto National Museum

Kofun-period culture arose in the Kinai region in the middle of the third century, and by the fourth century common features could be seen stretching from the northeastern Tohoku region to the southwestern island of Kyushu. These included similarities in residences and the shapes of keyhole-shaped tumuli called “kofun.” But by the fifth and sixth centuries, evidence of noticeable differences appeared in the styles of stone burial chambers and the burial goods contained in these tumuli.
Among these broader changes, the south-central region of Kyushu developed a unique burial culture independent of the Honshu and Shikoku regions. Prime examples include stone figures called sekijin and figures carved in relief that have been found mainly in Kumamoto and Fukuoka prefectures, as well as bracelets made from shell imported from oceans to the south, which were discovered in Miyazaki. This exhibition shows that, far from the popular image of regional uniformity, the Kumamoto and Miyazaki regions developed their own unique Kofun culture.

Shell Bracelet
From Ōtsubo Tomb No. 1, Miyazaki
Saitobaru Archaeological Museum of Miyazaki Prefecture

Object with Incised Lines and Arcs
From Kunigoshi Tumulus, Kumamoto
Kumamoto Prefectural Decorated Tumulus Museum

The term hakubyō means “white drawing” and refers to a style of monochrome image that uses almost exclusively ink linework. This developed out of a tradition of East Asian painting that emphasizes the beauty of paper and line. In Japan, well known works such as the National Treasure Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) employ great variation in brushwork and ink gradation, while other hakubyō works that emerged from the refined aesthetics of court culture employ fine, uniform lines in a fluid hand. These latter works form a genre known as hakubyō Yamato-e, or Japanese-style monochrome painting, which reached its pinnacle in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). As the Kamakura period came to an end, an increasing number of more intimate works with looser linework began to be made, leading to a new era of monochrome painting.

Tale of the Princess (Chūgū monogatari)

Arhats, called rakan in Japanese, are sage-like high priests of Buddhism who were believed to have lived in ancient India. They were first pictorialized in China and their images later imported to Japan, where Japanese depictions usually maintain a distinctive, Chinese-influenced style. Arhats and their images have been worshiped in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), however their popularity increased dramatically in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) along with the growing influence of Zen Buddhism.
The early Chinese and Japanese painters of arhats and their audiences must have believed these images to resemble actual Buddhist elders in ancient India. Today, they are perhaps more striking for their strange, eccentric, and exoticized appearances. The gap between the real historical sages and their imaginative portrayal in painting makes this a truly fascinating subject of East Asian Buddhist art.

Important Cultural Property
Sixteen Arhats
Dairen-ji Temple, Shiga

During the summer season, the Medieval Paintings gallery presents a selection of decorated fan paintings. Fans have played an important role in the lives of Japanese people since ancient times. Used casually in daily life for cooling off, fans are also employed in many ritual and formal occasions and continue to serve a variety of functions today. The foldable surface of a fan provides a dynamic and compact surface for a rich variety of painting subjects, and over time artists and craftsmen produced large numbers of luxury fans decorated with beautiful paintings that served as sophisticated objects of gift exchange in elite society. In addition to paintings, Zen priests and other cultured elites inscribed poetic verses on fans and exchanged them as a way of deepening relationships. Brushed by a diverse range of artists, the fans on view provide an invaluable window into the world of medieval Japanese painting.

Important Cultural Property
Fan with Tale of Calligrapher Wang Xizhi
Inscription by Daigaku Shūsū and Ishō Tokugan; painting by Josetsu
Kyoto National Museum

Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674) was born in Kyoto as the grandson of the virtuosic sixteenth-century master, Kano Eitoku (1543–1590). At age sixteen he became the official painter in attendance (goyō eshi) to the Tokugawa shogun and began to position himself as the pillar of the Kano house of painters. His elegant and sophisticated painting style marked a divergence from previous Kano painters, not only setting a new standard for his followers but also influencing the broader trajectory of the many diverse schools of painting that flourished in the Edo period (1615–1868).
As the official painter of the realm in close proximity to the center of power in Edo, Tan’yū would later be characterized by the art historian Okakura Tenshin as the “Ieyasu of the art world,” an allusion to the first Tokugawa shogun. This exhibition presents highlights of Tan’yū’s career, displayed in the city of his birth, Kyoto.

Important Cultural Property
Pine Trees of the Four Seasons (Left Screen)
By Kano Tan’yū
Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto

The lotus has long been a favored motif in Chinese painting. Unstained by the muddy waters of its surroundings, the flower symbolizes purity and the ideal of freedom from worldly affairs. In his poetic essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” the eleventh-century philosopher Zhou Dunyi famously contrasted the nobility of the peony and the reclusiveness of the chrysanthemum with the purity of the lotus, praising it as “gentleman among flowers.” In Buddhism also, the lotus blossoms in the Pure Land and adorns images of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This exhibition features a wide variety of Chinese paintings that portray this most virtuous and sacred of flowers. We hope that you take your time to admire each work as you decipher the meaning of the lotus.

Important Cultural Property
Egrets in a Lotus Pond (Right Scroll)
Kyoto National Museum

From ancient times through the Edo period (1615–1868), almost all subjects of Japanese sculpture were religious in nature. After Buddhism was introduced to Japan and became firmly established in the seventh century, the production of Buddhist statues flourished. Buddhist deities and their images often have origins in South Asia or Central Asia, and they were usually transmitted to Japan by way of China, bringing with them a complex array of foreign influences.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese sculpture is its use of wood as a primary material. Various modes of carving and other techniques—including joint-block construction (yosegi-zukuri) and inlaid crystal eyes—were developed in Japan to create these wood images.
Over time, the repeated introduction of new images from the Asian continent contributed to further stylistic transformations and innovations in Japan. The Japanese Buddhist sculptures on view here reflect various styles of different historical periods.

Thousand-Armed Kannon (Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteśvara) in Incense Container-Shaped Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

The Chūson-ji Sutras comprise two sets of Buddhist scriptures that were dedicated by members of the Ōshū Fujiwara clan and offered to Chūson-ji Temple in Hiraizumi in the twelfth century. Each set is composed of more than 5,000 volumes. The “Kiyohira Sutras” were commissioned by the first patriarch of the Ōshū Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056–1128) and are transcribed in gold and silver characters on indigo-dyed paper. These were supplemented by the “Hidehira Sutras,” which used only gold characters and were sponsored by the third clan chieftain Fujiwara no Hidehira (?–1187).
The Shingon Buddhist temple Hinōsan Kanshin-ji in Kawachinagano City preserves 216 volumes of Chūson-ji Sutras. Enjoy the glimmering brilliance of these sublimely decorated sutras that convey the former glory and faith of the Ōshū Fujiwara.

Important Cultural Property
The Method of Mañjuśrīʼs Fundamental Single-Word Dhāraṇī (Kiyohira Sutra)
Vow by Fujiwara no Kiyohira
Kanshin-ji Temple, Osaka

Water is a central motif in visual cultures throughout the world. Falling from the heavens as rain or snow, the life-giving element flows into rivers and seeps underground, allowing us to quench our thirst and irrigate the crops that sustain life. The beauty of its everchanging form responds to the passage of time and the shape of its vessel. As the substance of majestic oceans and rivers, it inspires the artistic creation of sublime landscape paintings and designs rich in symbolic resonance.
Flowing, swirling, splashing – this exhibition introduces a variety of styles for representing water as a motif in the designs of dyed and woven Japanese textiles. The textiles on display highlight designs that incorporate the refreshing atmosphere of the waterside and abstracted designs of blue ocean waves.

Hitoe (Unlined Kimono) with Sweetfish and Wild Pinks in the Rainy Season
Kyoto National Museum

The Muromachi period (1392–1573) could be called the cradle of Japanese civilization as we know it today. The culture of the nobility, which flourished in Kyoto during the Heian period (794–1185), blended together with the samurai culture originating in eastern Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the latest cultural developments from continental Asia. Following the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, Japan entered an eventful 240 years marked by the strife-torn Nanbokuchō period (1333–1392), during which there were two rival imperial courts; the stable rule of the Muromachi shogunate; and the chaos of prolonged civil war.
In this section, we present cast metalwork from this formative period in the form of mirrors and chime-like percussive instruments called kei (Ch: bianqing). In addition to relics of the aristocratic Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures of Kyoto, the exhibition features masterworks from regions throughout Japan that advanced while Kyoto fell into decline during the civil wars of the Nanbokuchō through Momoyama periods.

National Treasure
Mirror with Pines, Bamboo, and Pair of Cranes, from the Sacred Treasures of Asuka Shrine
Kyoto National Museum

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, ceremonial feasts called naorai are held following the completion of rituals, whereupon the food and drink offerings presented to the kami are consumed by divine spirits and the living alike. In Buddhism also, offerings of food and drink are made to Buddhist deities as part of ritual services, after which lay parishioners and other faithful dine together with the officiating priests. In some Zen monasteries, ritual offerings of meals and tea to a temple’s founder are followed by the consumption of those same offerings.
Beautiful tableware made of lacquer is an indispensable part of these ritualized meals. Likewise, the enjoyment of a meal and the pouring of drinks can be seen wherever people gather, whether at a wedding or funeral, seasonal festivities like the viewing of cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, or even a day out at the theater. Take the time to revel in Japan’s rich culture of feasting through the lacquerware that transformed festive dining into sublime events.

Portable Picnic Case with Gagaku Court Music Designs
Kyoto National Museum