Commemorative special exhibition 7th

Masterpieces of Buddhist Art:
Representing the Sublime

Date: July 10th – August 8th
Closed on Mondays except July 19th, and July 20th is closed

Hours: 10 am to 5 pm (entrance closed at 4:30 pm)

General admission: Adult 1200 yen, Student 1000 yen

This summer will be a time to appreciate various aspects of the sublime at the Nezu Museum. The Masterpieces of Buddhist Art: Representing the Sublime exhibition presents a selection of the more than 500 religious art works in the Nezu collection. Approximately 30 works will be displayed, including Buddhist ritual paintings, sculpture and equipment from Japan, China and Korea.

Japan’s Heian to Kamakura periods mark a peak in terms of both the quality and quantity of Buddhist art works created. These works were made as part of the flourishing of various Buddhist sects in Kyoto and Nara, as each group prospered, gathered new followers, trained their faithful and conducted the myriad ceremonies that form the Buddhist faith. This exhibition features a diverse array of subject matter, from mandala paintings, to paintings that served as the central worship images of Esoteric Buddhist sects, plus narrative works depicting the tales, legends and historical subjects related to Buddhism. The magnificent mandala work, Eighty-one Deity Mandala of the Adamantine Realm, the illustrated handscroll sutra, the Illustrated Sutra of Causes and Effects (both Kamakura period and designated Important Cultural Properties), along with Amitabha (Korean, dated to Koryo Dynasty 1306, Important Cultural Property) are some of the must-see works on display. The Museum’s Standing Fudō-myōō (Acalanātha) sculpture has recently been restored, and this is its debut appearance in its newly beautiful form. In addition to displays in Galleries 1 and 2, visitors can also enjoy the Buddhist sculpture on permanent display in the Entrance Hall and throughout the extensive museum gardens.

The Fascination of Large Dishes

［Collection Exhibition in Gallery 5］

Large dishes impress their viewers with their sheer scale. Paintings from the Edo period and Islamic miniatures show scenes of people enjoying banquets and other revelry surrounded by food served in large dishes. Conversely, these works were displayed on the walls of elegant homes and buildings in Europe and Middle Eastern countries, where they could be enjoyed just like paintings. This selection presents the many guises and moods of large-scale dishes.

Evening Tea Gathering

［Collection Exhibition in Gallery 6］

One Japanese term for dusk or evening is yūsari. During Japan’s hot, humid summers, tea ceremonies are often held at dusk to avoid the heat of the day. The mood is made all the more elegant by candlelight. The Fresh-water container with vine design in underglaze blue and other tea utensils with poetic names related to evening are featured in this selection.

Commemorative special exhibition 8th

Nezu Museum:
From the Past to the Future

Date: August 21st – September 26th
Closed on Mondays except September 20th, and September 21st is closed

Hours: 10 am to 5 pm (entrance closed at 4:30 pm)

General admission: Adult 1200 yen, Student 1000 yen

The Nezu Museum’s collection largely centers on a core of tea ceremony utensils, Buddhist art works, and ancient Chinese bronzes collected by Nezu Kaichirō Sr. (1860-1940). In subsequent years various generous donors have donated or bequeathed art works to the museum, ranging across all media and periods, including Muromachi ink paintings, Heian-Kamakura period calligraphy, Korean ceramics, Japanese Hizen porcelains, and pre-modern Japanese decorative arts. These works have added to both the breadth and depth of the museum’s holdings, making the collection all the more fascinating, all the more complete. The collection includes 7 works designated by the Japanese government as National Treasures, 87 works designated Important Cultural Properties and 96 works designated Important Art Objects. More than 1,800 works have been donated or bequeathed to the museum; this is a rare accomplishment for a Japanese private museum and stands as a measure of the great trust placed in the institution.

This exhibition, which focuses on how the Nezu Museum collection was created, is the last of the eight exhibitions held in commemoration of the opening of the new Nezu Museum. The exhibition presents various examples from Nezu Kaichirō Sr’s collection and characteristic examples of works from the eight collections donated by such benefactors as Akiyama Jun’ichi, Kobayashi Ataru, Uemura Wadō and Fukushima Shizuko. The exhibition is spread throughout all of the museum’s galleries, with approximately 150 works organized by their collector or donor.

Many major works are included in the display. The selection from Nezu Kaichirō Sr.’s collection will showcase a major example of pre-modern Japanese painting, Wisterias (Important Cultural Property) by Maruyama Ōkyo (1733-95), second only in popularity to the museum’s Irises. Based on the artist’s detailed observation of actual wisteria plants, this painting is renowned as a work that shows the true spirit of Ōkyo’s style with its fusion of free ink brush work, highly refined color techniques and a planar decorative sensibility. Another famous work, Writing box in makie lacquer, known as Hana-no-Shirakawa (Important Cultural Property) that is said to have been a favorite possession of Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1436-90) and Shōkadō Shōjō (1584-1639) was purchased by Nezu in 1903 at an auction of the Hirase family collection for what was at the time a record breaking price of 16,500 yen (in an era when a public servant’s starting wage was 8 to 9 yen a month). The purchase made Nezu’s name in the Japanese world of antique art collecting.

The donated works featured in this exhibition include Heaven and earth, from the Akiyama Jun’ichi collection that focuses on calligraphy by the Edo period Zen priest Ryōkan and ceramics from Korea’s Koryŏ dynasty. Kan’non (Avalokitesvara) in white robe (Important Art Object) is from the collection of Muromachi period ink painting assembled by Kobayashi Ataru over many years and donated to the Nezu in 1981.