This semester we’ve covered artistic styles and cultures such as abstract expressionism, Dutch paintings, and even ancient Middle Eastern art. However, if planning to visit the Met in the near future, one should also consider visiting the Asian art section to witness the “Storytelling in Japanese Art” exhibition. The show showcases more than a hundred works from the 13th to 19th centuries, including an variety of hand scrolls, screens, books, and hanging scrolls.
These beautiful scrolls have the ability to project a primeval movie. For instance, the scroll “Illustrated Legends of the Kitano Tenjin Shrine,” (partially shown above) depicts the story of the life and afterlife of ninth-century poet Sugawara Michizane. After being unjustly killed, his angry spirit wreaks havoc on the world. Thus, Nichizo, a courageous “acolyte” is sent to appease him. The scroll depicts his journey, in which he even faces an eight-headed monster. Furthermore, this scroll is just one example of how the revamped exhibition mixes different narratives, genres and styles into groupings in order to tell different tales.
Many of the hand scrolls viewable in this showcase resulted from the spread of Buddhism from China to Japan. This clearly reminded me of Islamic art discussions in class. With the spread of Mohammad’s doctrine, artistic styles and patterns were allowed to spread and evolve over time. Oftentimes religion plays a more crucial role in art than merely subject matter or inspiration, as seen by the growth of these two styles. Moreover, by examining many a few of the Japanese pieces, I noticed certain similarities, such as the unique perspective in which people and objects are viewed in the foreground. However, when it comes to detail, Islamic art’s remains unrivaled.
Some of the works truly have a distinct look, and once again if given the opportunity, don’t hesitate to check out the exhibit. The Japanese Storytelling display will be up until May 6th, and starting from February 8th a second rotation of scrolls will be unraveled.
You mention many things about the Japanese that make going to this exhibit worthwhile. Asian art is typically famous for its scrolls, especially the ones that tell stories. As the one mentioned in your post, “Illustrated Legends of the Kitano Tenjin Shrine,” it brings to light the contrasts that are apparent in Asian art and Western Art. The nonwestern art that we have mentioned in class is Islamic art. Asian art is both similar and disimilar to that style. In contrast to the Frans Halls exhibit in the Met that fits into the time scale of 13th-19th century, the Japanese were not so interested in realism The idea of beauty in art in Asian cultures is much different from that of the European tradition. It does not mean that one is better than another, it merely means that we can see each culture’s ideals displayed in art. The western tradition during the 13th-19th century has been more focused on representing the subjects realistically, and in the height of the Renaissance and afterword, artists were praised for realism. In Asian art, artists do not strive to represent subjects so realistically, and many times the perspective is off. This gallery shows the contrasts rather well. Personally, I sometimes get bored fo realism, and love going to see the other ideal of beauty.
In our class, we have seen so many different styles of art that it is impossible NOT to compare them. Lauren makes the distinction between this “Storytelling in Japanese Art” exhibit and the Frans Hals exhibit in much the same way I made the comparison between Frans Hals and the Nepalese artwork that the Metropolitan Museum of Art had on display not too far from where the Frans Hals exhibit had been. Each exhibit depicted different images and these images may have been presented in different mediums but they all achieved the same goal. All of these examples proved that art really is a great way to see exactly the kinds of things different cultures and societies admire and emphasize and that it is an indispensable tool for cultural anthropologists.