"Masterpieces of Japanese Art from the Mary
Griggs Burke Collection"
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
will present an unprecedented
exhibition of Japanese art drawn
from the renowned Mary Griggs
Burke Collection, the largest and
most encompassing private
collection of Japanese art
outside Japan, beginning March
28. Bringing together some 200
masterpieces ? including
paintings, sculpture, ceramics,
calligraphy, lacquerware, and
ukiyo-e prints ? Masterpieces of
Japanese Art from the Mary
Griggs Burke Collection will
reveal the remarkable range and
quality of Mrs. Burke's activities as a collector over the past 37
years.
Organized chronologically ? from the earliest Japanese
cultures of around 3000 B.C. to the Edo period (1615-1868)
? the exhibition will provide an overview of the development
of Japanese art as well as explore the use of divergent
artistic traditions, including those adapted from other cultures
and those that reflect native Japanese tastes. This is the first
major exhibition of Japanese art at the Metropolitan Museum
since 1975. Many works in the exhibition, including the
luminous, early-17th-century screen, Women Contemplating
Floating Fans, have never before been seen by the public.
The collection of Mary Griggs Burke has long been
recognized as one of the finest assemblages of Japanese
art in private hands, commented Philippe de Montebello,
Director of the Metropolitan Museum. It is the only American
collection ever to be shown at the Tokyo National Museum,
a testament to Mrs. Burke's sensitivity to and appreciation of
Japanese aesthetics. From the astonishing early ceramics
to painted 17th-century ukiyo-e evocations of urban life,
these works span vividly the remarkable history of one of
the world's great cultures.
Early Works
A ceramic vessel from the middle Jomon period (ca.
2500-1500 B.C.) ? with a flamboyant rim and decorative
markings made by impressing parts of a rope into the clay
body ? opens the exhibition. Other early ceramics include a
Haniwa Figure of a Young Woman with a Large Chignon and
a barrel-shaped bottle (yokobe), both from the sixth century.
Ties to China and Korea are most evident in the introduction
of Buddhism to Japan from the Korean kingdom of Paekche
in 538. Building temples and commissioning painting and
sculptures were important activities for the members of the
imperial family and other privileged individuals during the
Nara (710-784), Heian (794-1185), and Kamakura
(1185-1333) periods.
Highlights in the exhibition include several sculptures
created using the yosegi or joined-wood technique, such as
an image of Bishamonten, the guardian of the North, and that
of Fudo, a fierce protector. A representation of the Bodhisattva
Jizo is the work of Kaikei (active 1185-1223), a member of the
prominent Kei school noted for his tempering of the powerful
realism of the Kamakura period with the courtly elegance of
an earlier style. The blending of the imported religion of
Buddhism with such older native traditions as Shinto is
illustrated by rare examples of male and female Shinto gods
from the 10th century, and an evocative 14th-century moonlit
landscape housing the Shinto Kasuga shrine in Nara.
In the ninth century, the creation of the kana script ? which
abbreviates selected Chinese characters to represent
syllables in Japanese ? led to a flowering of literature,
painting, and calligraphy that reflected native interests and
aesthetics. Examples such as the 14th-century Painting
Competition and the contemporaneous Portrait of Fujiwara
Teika (1162-1241) illustrate the importance of poets and their
oeuvres. Famous collaborative works, such as One Hundred
Poems by One Hundred Poets, Selected at Mount Ogura, for
which Hon'ami Koetsu (1558-1637) wrote the calligraphy and
Tawaraya Sotatsu (died ca. 1640) designed the writing
paper, continue this tradition. The Japanese genius for
dramatic narratives is exemplified by 17th- and 18th-century
album leaves, handscrolls, folding screens, and a lacquer
box depicting scenes from the Tale of Genji ? often
considered the world's first novel ? written by Lady Murasaki
Shikibu around 1000.
Introduced from China in the 13th century, Zen Buddhism
brought the concept and technique of ink painting to Japan. At
first used exclusively in temples associated with this branch
of the religion, ink paintings and Zen themes soon moved to
the secular world. Recently acquired, a charmingly painted
handscroll depicting the Ten Oxherding Songs, and dated
1278, provides an early example of this Zen theme in which
the actions of the young herdsman and the powerful ox he
tends serve as metaphors for the quest for enlightenment.
14th-18th Century
An area of particular strength within the collection,
Muromachi-period (1391-1573) ink paintings include the
diptych Orchids by Bonpo and a depiction of the Chinese Zen
masters Bukan, Kanzan, and Jittoku by Reisai, both active in
the 15th century. Sesson Shukei, a master of the 16th
century, is represented by two landscapes and by the Seven
Sages of the Bamboo Grove, a parody of a traditional
Chinese theme of individualism and eremetism that
resonated in Zen circles.
The bold graphic forms of the green willows and gold
bridges in the 16th-century Willows and Bridges exemplify
the taste of the ruling elite during the short-lived Momoyama
period (1573-1615). This pair of folding screens is often
thought to represent the bridge over the Uji River, in
southeast Kyoto, a famous Japanese site celebrated in
Japanese literature as early as the eighth century. Powerful,
simplified designs and striking contrasts in shape and color
are also evident in the seven examples of lacquer in the
Kodaiji style, such as the set of shelves decorated with a
grapevine motif. Named after the small Kodaiji, built as a
mortuary temple by the widow of the powerful warlord
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, lacquers in this style illustrate a novel
and simplified use of the Japanese maki-e technique, in
which designs are created by sprinkling pieces of gold onto a
black lacquer background. The vibrant presence and tactile
surfaces of ceramics produced for use in the tea ceremony,
first codified in the 16th century, also illustrate the aesthetics
of this period. Extraordinary examples include a water jar
from the Iga kilns, a black Seto tea bowl, and a white Shino
example sketchily painted with a design of a bridge and a
house.
A comparison between two pairs of screens depicting cranes
? one by Ishida Yutei (1721-1780) and the other by
Nagasawa Rosetsu (1754-1799) ? attests to the liveliness
and diversity that characterize Japanese art during the
prosperous and stable Edo period. Set against a gold
background, Yutei's cranes are drawn with clean black
outlines and painted in shades of white, black, and gray, with
touches of color around the heads. Rosetsu's birds, on the
other hand, are created with bold, black slashes of ink placed
against empty areas of white paper. The use of this
technique, and the somewhat eccentric personalities of the
birds, explain his position as one of the three great
individualist masters of 18th-century painting, along with Ito
Jakuchu (1716-1800) and Soga Shohaku (1730-1781), who
are also represented in the exhibition.
The development of the Nanga School provides another
example of the Japanese openness to new themes,
techniques, and ways of seeing during the Edo period. Artists
in this school based their work on the art of Chinese literati
masters who painted as an act of self-cultivation and
self-expression. Ike Taiga's (1723-1776) Gathering at the
Orchard Pavilion ? a depiction of a famous Chinese poetry
party said to have been held on March 3, 353 ? will pay
homage to this tradition while illustrating a distinctly
Japanese flavor in its narrative quality, abundant use of
pastel colors, and dense, decorative brushwork.
A recently acquired, six-fold screen entitled Women
Contemplating Floating Fans provides a rare and important
example of the rise of genre painting in the late 16th and
early 17th century. Eighteen stately women and their four
young attendants stand or sit along the railings of a bridge
casting their fans into the water and watching them float
away, a possible reference to the tradition of discarding used
fans at the end of each summer. The women's simple
hairstyles and the stripes and small patterns in their clothing
help date the painting to the early 17th century. The elaborate
hairstyle and brilliant designs on the robe of the
late-17th-century Kanbun Beauty, on the other hand,
illustrates changes in fashion during this period. This
painting belongs to the tradition known as ukiyo-e, or
images of the floating world, which celebrates the pleasures
and cultural heroes of urban dwellers in Edo (present-day
Tokyo) and Kyoto. Paintings of this genre were among the
first objects acquired by Mrs. Burke and her late husband
Jackson Burke when they began collecting seriously in 1963
? the start of their journey through Japanese history, culture,
and art that will be recorded in this exhibition.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, NY
USA United States of America