Exhibitions

Overview

【Gallery1】Mirrors have a long history. In China, the first bronze mirrors were made during the Neolithic period. Mirrors were regarded as spiritual entities able to reflect the depths of human souls. Given the mirrors’ symbolic significance, the patterns on the backs of these mirrors embodied the world views and wishes of their times. For this exhibition, we have selected 60 notable examples from the collection of ancient Chinese mirrors donated to the museum by Murakami Eiji in 2010. In the patterns on their backs we can see the origins of heaven and earth, the world of the gods and immortals, and wishes for good fortune in this world, including long life and many descendants.
【Gallery2】Sesshū Tōyō is the exemplary artist-monk of the Muromachi Period. It has gradually become clear that until his late thirties, he used the name with the same pronunciation but written in different characters (拙宗等揚 instead of 雪舟等楊). One of his works from his younger period, Bodhidharma Crossing the Yangtze on a Reed, was long thought to be lost, but was rediscovered in America and restored in Japan. It is included in this exhibition, in which it is being displayed in Japan for the first time. This exhibition thus offers the first opportunity to broaden our understanding of Sesshū by focusing on his work in his youth as well as his later work .