CMA Exhibition Feature : Japanese Landscapes and Chinese Vistas

Special Exhibitions

Unfolding Beauty


Unfolding Beauty
	Exhibition Highlights
		Highlights on View August 14 – September 16



Arrival of the "Southern Barbarians," about 1600 Momoyama period (1573-1615) Pair of six-fold screens; ink, color, and gold on paper Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1960.193.2

Japanese Landscapes and Chinese Vistas

Traditional Japanese-style painting, known as yamato-e, differs in appearance and materials from the monochromatic ink tones associated with Chinese-style painting (kara-e). The use of gold and silver, either as a metal foil or as pigments, in combination with brilliant green, blue, red, and orange mineral colors helps to distinguish this native painting style. Yamato-e originated during the Heian period (10th-12th centuries) in conjunction with court literature and religious art (primarily Buddhist).

The seasons and festivals celebrating the close relationship between humans and the forces of nature account for much of the subject matter in traditional Japanese-style painting.

Chinese paintings imported into Japan beginning in the 14th and 15th centuries provided inspiration for new styles and themes for Japanese painters and their patrons. Very few Japanese painters actually visited the continent to experience the Chinese landscape and culture directly. Consequently, the popularity of Chinese imagery in Japanese cultural history is largely based upon generations of Japanese interpretations of old, revered Chinese-and Japanese-paintings preserved in collections over the centuries.



Arrival of the "Southern Barbarians," about 1600 Momoyama period (1573-1615) Pair of six-fold screens; ink, color, and gold on paper Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1960.193.1

Portuguese merchants and missionaries, known as Nanban (foreigners), began to arrive in Japan during the later decades of the 16th century. Converts to the Catholic faith, particularly in the western provinces, numbered approximately 100,000 by the early 17th century. Western ideas, customs, and scientific knowledge provided a considerable source of excitement and interest in the country such that depictions of these foreigners and their worldly goods became a new subject of visual imagery in Japanese art.

The left screen of this pair depicts the arrival of a large Portuguese trading vessel in an unknown Japanese port and the unloading of a fascinating assortment of packaged goods.

Some of these have already been stockpiled on the wharf where an assortment of inquisitive townspeople has begun to gather to inspect them and the tall Western voyagers. The anonymous painter's observant eye also recorded the appearance of the Japanese town and its inhabitants.

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