Precious Woods, Pure Enjoyment: Japanese Art from the 19th and 20th Centuries

Beginning in the mid-19th century Japan was rapidly modernizing and simultaneously adopting many Western modes of artistic expression. Precious Woods, Pure Enjoyment: Japanese Art from the 19th and 20th Centuries features works of art that reflect a range of traditional styles and sources of cultural inspiration that remained strong in Japan during this period of change.

Several of the works featured in the installation are associated with the Bunjinga (literati painting) or Nanga (southern painting) schools inspired by the art of literati or scholar-officials in China, much of which is geographically situated south of Japan. A partially unrolled handscroll at the center of the gallery, Precious Woods, Pure Enjoyment, was painted in 1848 by Hine Taizan. It is joined by the hanging scroll Lotus Pond with Irises, c.1895–1898, by Kubota Beisen; the painted fan titled Dispositions of the Gentlemen, 1916, by Tomioka Tessai; and a pair of folding screens, Landscape of the Four Seasons, 1932, by Matsubayashi Keigetsu.

During the 20th century another modern art movement known as Nihonga (Japanese-style painting) emphasized a return to the subjects and styles of native Japanese visual art. Examples from this school of painting are represented by Fusen Tetsu’s Southern Island from the 1920s–1930s and Okamura Utarō’s Mount Fuji from the period 1955–1971.

Five bamboo flower baskets (hanakago) accompany the display of the hanging scrolls as they might be typically juxtaposed in the recessed alcoves (tokonoma) of a Japanese home to hold arrangements of seasonal flowers (ikebana). Some of them are based on Chinese basket forms, while others take on a more uniquely Japanese shape. These baskets are part of a group of 36 assembled by Nancy Jane Davidson Shestack, a native of St. Louis. They were recently bequeathed by her husband, Alan Shestack, a former director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Precious Woods, Pure Enjoyment: Japanese Art from the 19th and 20th Centuries is curated by Philip Hu, curator of Asian art.

#JapaneseArt #PreciousWoods