JAPANESE ART: This exhibition features a group of Japanese mandalas(graphic depictions of the Buddhist universe and its myriad realms and deities)of more than 60 works, including painting, sculpture, drawing, metalwork,stoneware, textile, and lacquer drawn from major museums and collections in theUS.
Japanese Mandalas: Emanations and Avatars illustrates theexceptional and complex world of Esoteric Buddhist art in Japan. Highlights ofthe exhibition include a set of monumental 13th-century mandalas on loan from theBrooklyn Museum – this pair was selected by the Japanese government to beconserved in Japan. Displayed in tandem with iconographic drawings that explainthe character and placement of the deities, the mandalas introduce viewers tothe supreme Buddha Dainichi Nyorai, the principal buddha of Japanese EsotericBuddhism, and his innumerable emanations and avatars across the Buddhistcosmos.
Sinéad Kehoe, assistant curator in the MetropolitanMuseum’s department of Asian Art explains that the Brooklyn mandalas are of atype known as the ‘Mandalas of Both Worlds’ or ‘Ryôkaimandala’ and constitute the finest examples of this kind in the US.Although Indian in origin, the concept of the mandala arrived in Japan fromChina in the early 9th century. The Chinese prototypes for the first Japanesemandalas have long since vanished, and their form is carefully preserved inJapan alone. At the same time, Japanese mandalas evolved in entirely newdirections unique to Esoteric Buddhism as it has been practised in Japan, oftenincorporating Shintô elements along the way.
Esoteric Buddhism, called Mikkyôin Japanese, has been the impetus for spectacular artistic developments inJapan since the year 806, when a Japanese monk by the name of Kûkai (774-835)returned from a voyage to China with the now-lost Chinese prototype of thepaired cosmic diagrams known as the ‘Mandalas of Both Worlds’. After thatpoint, Japanese religious art and culture exploded in myriad new directions.The original mandalas were copied and used as a powerful tool to spread theteachings of the Shingon(‘True Word’), a school of Esoteric Buddhism founded by Kûkai, as well as theEsoteric teachings of the Tendai School founded by Kûkai’s fellow monk Saichô(767-822).
The exhibition is organised around three pairs of‘Mandalas of Both Worlds’, one from the Muromachi period (1392-1573),consisting entirely of deities represented by Sanskrit letters; a pair byMatsubara Shôgetsu from the Edo period (1615-1868) that once belonged to thepowerful Tokugawa Shogunate; and the pair dating from the Kamakura period(1185-1333), on loan from Brooklyn Museum. The show also includes an importantearly Esoteric Buddhist sculpture Tobatsu Bishamonten, a deity isolated fromthe Mandalas of Both Worlds for individual worship, as well as a scroll fromthe 14th-century illustrated narrative handscroll A Long Tale for an Autumn Night, which tellsof the ill-fated love affair between a senior monk and a beautiful novice.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the museum haveorganised a series of educational programmes, including Under the Gaze of the Stars: Astral Manuals in MedievalJapan, a lecture by Bernard Faure, Kao Professor in JapaneseReligion, Columbia University (7 November), and Collectorsand Collections, a panel discussion with collectors Sylvan Barnetand William Burto, moderated by Sinéad Kehoe (14 November).
Two concurrent Japanese-themed installations can befound in The Sackler Wing Galleries for the Arts of Japan.The firstinstallation, AstonishingSilhouettes: Western Fashion in 19th-Century Japanese Prints, exploresthe illustration of Western dress by Japaneseukiyo-e print artists in the latter half of the 19th century, whenJapan encountered Western fashion. The installation focuses on Yokohama printsfrom the early 1860s showing colourful Japanese renditions of Westerners inWestern dress. The installation also displays Meiji prints from the 1880sdepicting members of the Japanese elite in Western clothing, which they adoptedalong with other elements of Western culture.
The second installation is a selection of masterworks byShibata Zeshin (1807-1891) and his contemporaries. A virtuoso in lacquerpainting, Zeshin was one of the few Japanese artists of the late 19th centurywho was recognized in the West. A counterpoint to such Meiji print artists asToyohara Chikanobu (1838-1912), whose most famous work focused on elites inWestern dress (an example that is included in the Astonishing Silhouettesinstallation), Zeshin’s work captures the spirit of the pastimes of thecommoners of the city of Edo as it was becoming the modern-day capital of Tokyounder the new Meiji regime. The installation includes Autumn Grasses in Moonlight (circa 1872-91),one of Zeshin’s finest screen paintings, and a writing box with design of agourd with butterflies (1886), a masterpiece demonstrating the artist’stechnical prowess.
Until 29 NovemberMandalas: Emanations and Avatars at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
CHINESE ART: Although lacquer isused in many Asian cultures, the art of carving lacquer is unique to China.Showcasing some 50 examples, this exhibition explores the development of thisartistic tradition from the 13th to the 18th century. Drawn from the museum’sholdings, as well as the collection of Florence and Herbert Irving, theexhibition features a number of masterworks, including newly acquired, rare13th-century lacquer boxes for holding incense or cosmetics and a recentlyrestored eight-panel screen depicting a birthday celebration in an elaborateprivate compound. Dated 1773, this screen has never before been exhibited inpublic.
Known in China as early as the last Neolithicperiod (circa 5000-2000 BC), the production of luxury articles in lacquersuffered an eclipse after the Han dynasty (206 BC-220AD). During the Tangdynasty (618-907), lacquer objects were finely constructed but were stillrather plain in design. In the 12th century, however, a new class of luxurylacquer objects – carved lacquer – emerged. From then on, carved lacquer madesignificant advances both artistically and stylistically.
Lacquer is the resin, or sap, of rhus verniciflua, a family of trees foundthroughout southern China. The resin hardens when exposed to oxygen and becomesa natural plastic that is resistant to water and can withstand heat and certainacids. The red lacquer derives its colour from cinnabar (powdered red sulphideof mercury) that is the most prominent colorant employed in carved lacquer,also identified as ‘cinnabar’ lacquer. The production of carved lacquerrequires laborious processes.
Multiple layers of raw lacquer – often 30 or35 but at times up to 200 – are applied onto a substructure, usually made ofwood. After drying in air, each layer is carved individually to create a lushgeometric motif or engaging scenes of figures in landscapes and lively birdsflitting among flowers.
Lacquer was – and still is – highly prized,especially when the artist manipulated the strata of resin to createmeticulously carved imagery. Amongst the works on view, a 13th- or 14th-centuryincense box, adorned entirely with a bold design of pommel scrolls, demonstratesa characteristic feature of early carved lacquer in China: numerous layers ofgreen and yellow lacquer are interspersed among the predominant red to givesubtle depth to the overall design. In the late 14th and the 15th century,extraordinary lacquers with delicately carved backgrounds, in which differentgeometric designs are used to show earth, water, and sky, were also produced.
Until21 February, Cinnabar at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
