Special Exhibitions
Unfolding Beauty
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Special Exhibitions |
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Unfolding Beauty |
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Thirty-Six Poets The Japanese passion for literature can be traced back to the poetic traditions of the Heian period (10th-12th centuries). Aristocratic men and women of that era were keenly interested in composing already standardized five-line poems, and talent in this endeavor brought them recognition and advancement at the imperial court. Over time, celebrated poets—male and female—became widely admired, and highly imaginary portraits of them began to appear. The literary impulses of medieval and then modern (Edo period) Japan were so strong that these images were almost objects of veneration.The earliest surviving poet portraits incorporate three defining features of early Japanese pictorial art: literature, calligraphy, and painted image. By the 18th century, however, the most creative "thirty-six poets" compositions had abandoned calligraphic inscriptions in favor of emphasizing the assemblage of poets and their appearance. It was assumed that viewers were familiar with these authors' best known poems. Portrayals of eminent poets in Japanese art appeared first as hanging scrolls that incorporated an example of a poem by the author into the composition. Later, in early medieval Japan (12th-14th centuries) the handscroll format became the preferred format for delineating the poets individually, in pairs, or in small groups. Although the selection of 36 male and female poets was virtually codified by the 14th century, variations of that number began to appear, adding further cultural dimensions to an ongoing reassessment of the basic historical grouping.
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