Past Exhibitions
- Feature Exhibition in Celebration of ICOM Kyoto 2019
Masterworks of the Kyoto National Museum: Temple and Shrine Treasures
Buddhist and Shinto Images of Kyoto - August 14, 2019 - September 16, 2019
Buddha statues and images of Shinto deities were produced over the thousand years that Kyoto was Japan's capital. Many were lost to war or natural disaster, but great variety can be seen among the number of works that survive. The statues on display in this gallery range from those produced in the ninth century, when the priests Saichō (767–822) and Kūkai (774–835) returned from China to introduce esoteric Buddhism in Japan, to statues of the Kamakura period (1185–1333) that emerged alongside the religious development known as New Kamakura Buddhism. Also on display are The Five Wisdom Buddhas of Anshō-ji Temple. Designated National Treasures just this year, they are significant as the oldest extant complete statuary set of the iconography.
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