Page 7 - Designing_Nature_The_Rinpa_Aesthetic_in_Japanese_Art Metropolitan Museum PUB

Director’s ForeworD

Among the masterworks of Japanese screen painting in the Metropolitan

Museum’s collection are Ogata Kōrin’s Irises at Yatsuhashi and Suzuki Kiitsu’s
Morning Glories, both disarmingly simple in composition and yet captivating in
their graphic potency. In the spring of 2012, Irises at Yatsuhashi was exhibited

with great fanfare at the Nezu Museum, Tokyo, alongside another set of screen
paintings of irises by Kōrin, now in the Nezu Museum’s collection, that is one of
Japan’s officially designated National Treasures. The homecoming of Irises at
Yatsuhashi to New York provided the ideal opportunity to highlight this treasured
painting in the context of related works by Kōrin and by other artists associated

with the “Rinpa” aesthetic, a modern designation for a distinctive style of
Japanese pictorial art that arose in the early seventeenth century and has
continued into modern times.

One of the special characteristics of the present exhibition and its accompany-
ing catalogue is the juxtaposition of iconic works from across the centuries. Paint-
ings from the Edo period (1615–1868), for example, are displayed alongside the
sumptuously colored woodblock-printed books by early twentieth-century painter
and illustrator Kamisaka Sekka, famed for his modern renditions of the Rinpa

repertoire. Contemporary ceramic, lacquer, and bamboo artists are also repre-
sented in the galleries, demonstrating how encounters with the arts of the present
continue to provide our visitors an engaging way to access the arts of the past.

“Designing Nature: The Rinpa Aesthetic in Japanese Art” is the first exhibi-
tion at the Metropolitan Museum organized by recently appointed curator John T.
Carpenter. It brings together outstanding examples of painting, calligraphy,
textiles, lacquerware, ceramics, and cloisonné enamel from both the Museum’s
holdings and select private collections. We extend our deep gratitude to each of

our lenders and equally to our generous funders. For its support of the exhibi-
tion and many of the Museum’s Japanese art initiatives, we thank The Miriam
and Ira D. Wallach Foundation. In addition, we are grateful to the Richard and

Geneva Hofheimer Memorial Fund for this publication.

THOMAS P. CA MPBELL
Director, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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