Special Exhibition Commemorating a Decade since the Yamatane Museum of Art Opened in Hiroo A World of Flowers ―Coloring the Four Seasons [Past Exhibition]

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Past Exhibition

Special Exhibition Commemorating a Decade since the Yamatane Museum of Art Opened in Hiroo
A World of Flowers ―Coloring the Four Seasons

Araki Jippo, Birds and Flowers of Four Seasons
Yamatane Museum of Art

6 April (Sat.) – 2 June (sun.) 2019
(Closed on 7 May, and on Mondays, except for 29-30 April and 6 May.)

Hours:10 am - 5 pm (Last admission at 4:30 pm)

Admission Fees: Adults: 1,200 [1,000] yen; university and high school students: 900 [800] yen; middle school and younger children: free of charge
*Figures in brackets are for groups of 20 or more, advance tickets, repeaters with used tickets for this exhibition and those who are wearing kimono.
*Disability ID holders and one person accompanying them are admitted free of charge.

Organized by: Yamatane Museum of Art and The Asahi Shimbun.

Highlights of the Exhibition

Sakai Hōitsu, The Moon and Plum Trees, Color on Silk, Edo Period, 19th Century, Yamatane Museum of Art

Sakai Hōitsu, Chrysanthemums with Bird, Color on Silk, Edo Period, 19th Century, Yamatane Museum of Art

Tanomura Chokunyū, A Hundred Flowers, Color on Silk, Meiji Period, 1869, Yamatane Museum of Art

Araki Jippo, Birds and Flowers of the Four Seasons, Color on Silk, Taishō Period, 1917, Yamatane Museum of Art

Watanabe Seitei, Peonies and Butterflies, Color on Silk, Meiji Period, 1893

Yokoyama Taikan, Mountain Cherry Trees, Color on Silk, Shōwa Period, 1934, Yamatane Museum of Art

Hishida Shunsō, Women Viewing Cherry Blossoms, Color on Silk, Meiji Period, 1894, Yamatane Museum of Art

Hishida Shunsō, White Peony, Color on Silk, Meiji Period, c. 1901, Yamatane Museum of Art

Uemura Shōen, Cherry-Blossom Viewing, Color on Silk, Shōwa Period, c. 1926-29, Yamatane Museum of Art

Kobayashi Kokei, Bird and Evergreen Magnolia, Color on Silk, Shōwa Period, 1935, Yamatane Museum of Art

Okumura Togyū, Lily Magnolias, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1948, Yamatane Museum of Art

Yamaguchi Hōshun, Sunny Moments in the Rainy Season, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1966, Yamatane Museum of Art

Okuda Gensō, Oirase Ravine (Spring), Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1987

Approximately 60 works in total are to be displayed.

Exhibition Overview

Japanese hearts have long been captivated by the beautiful sight of flowers. Spring, summer, fall, and winter—blossoms bloom in glorious variety throughout the year. Cherished motifs symbolizing the seasons in poetry and literature, flowers are also an eternal subject of paintings. The Yamatane Museum of Art has chosen this season, when spring is at its peak, to hold an exhibition with flowers of the four seasons as its theme. Plum, cherry, peony, lily, morning glory, chrysanthemum, narcissus, camellia: we are delighted to present paintings from the Edo period to the present depicting flowers as seasonal symbols.

As subjects of paintings, flowers are matched with birds, insects, and human figures, for even richer variations that inspire our sense of the flavors of the seasons and delight our eyes. Edo-period Rimpa School painter Sakai Hōitsu, in paintings like The Moon and Plum Trees, with plums blooming on a moonlit night, and Chrysanthemums with Bird (a red-flanked bluetail), he captures the elegance of the flower's form. Turning to painters from the modern era, we encounter such works as Uemura Shōen's Cherry-Blossom Viewing, depicting a woman admiring the cherry blossoms. In Bird and Evergreen Magnolia by Kobayashi Kokei we see the evergreen magnolia in early summer combined with the Formosan whistling thrush (Myophonus insularis). In Yamaguchi Hōshun's Sunny Moments in the Rainy Season we see a hydrangea just after the rain has stopped. Flowers that capture the distinctive natural beauty of each season have inspired many superb paintings.

In this exhibition, the flowers depicted in paintings are displayed in the order of the seasons, spring, summer, fall, and winter, allowing visitors to savor the ever-changing seasons. The exhibition is divided into four sections: “Spring and Summer, Seasons of Brilliance,” “Autumnal and Winter Hues and the Return to Spring,” “Floral Utopias,” and “Flowers and People.”

These paintings are mingled with the language of flowers, flowers’ characteristics, the artists’ own words works conveying their feelings about their works, and flowers themselves, to introduce the appeal of these paintings of flowers from a variety of perspectives. The museum filled with flowers in full bloom becomes a garden of floral delights awaiting your pleasure.