Women's Media Nation | Social, political, and cultural issues relating to women

Art & Thought: 5,000 Years of Japanese Art: Treasures from the Packard Collection

posted by ChickSpeak
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 1:24pm CST

Gentle strokes of ivory paint curl across the yellowed scroll, creating layers of soft plumage that ascend in a tiny crescendo. As the rooster bends to greet the morning sun, his tail feathers arch into a magnificent crescent of dazzling white. I could almost feel the soft feathers brush against my cheek.

Surrounded by fifty centuries of Japanese art, I stood in the Sackler Wing Galleries of the Metropolitan Museum admiring Itô Jakuchû’s simple yet stunning piece, “Hen and Rooster with Grape Vine”. Looking over my shoulder, I could see an elderly couple standing a short distance behind me. They were exchanging whispers about the scroll and gesturing at the tiny characters which ran along the edge.

Every detail of the work, from the speckled plumes on the rooster’s breast to the lipstick red crown on its head, was deceptively simple. The woman behind me chuckled and said to her husband, “It looks a little bit like what Cassie did in her kindergarten class. Except better, of course.” I rolled my eyes and walked away, moving on to a pair of wooden Buddha figurines.

Staring at the serene expressions of the Buddha statues, I tried to shrug off the woman’s ignorance. Such comments were generally abundant in art galleries, but they were especially so in exhibitions that contained non-Western pieces. Asian art especially has yet to acquire the respect it deserves in the Western world, even within the sanctified halls of the beloved Met. Turning away, I walked down towards the highlight of the exhibition, a 17th century screen painting by Kano Sansetsu entitled, “The Old Plum.” Black trails wound across the panels, as branches struggled to take root on the surface of an unstable earth.

Everything appeared so dismal and chaotic, even though what is actually being portrayed is something both beautiful and creative. Painted around 1645, “The Old Plum” spans four sliding door panels, each moving seamlessly into the other as if it were all one unbroken canvas. I marveled at the workmanship, the gold leaf on paper, the varying hues of gray that sunk into a dusty olive and then a midnight black. The Chinese influence on the piece is obvious, with a landscape that echoes Ming Period artwork and a nature theme that is simultaneously reverential and horrifying.

A small boy who was sprinting from scroll to scroll stopped by “The Old Plum” just as I was about to leave. He raised one finger at the paper, looked in my direction, and said, “It looks like something from ‘The Two Towers.’” I smiled and nodded, agreeing with him. If I did not know better, I would have come to the same conclusion. Even though it was a magnificent work and truly deserving of its place as the centerpiece of the entire exhibition, “The Old Plum” was also a depressing selection. Lingering behind while the small boy continued to romp around, I wondered why any artist would choose to depict a scene of growth and development in such a monstrous way. Was nature really to be feared so much? Was the journey to rebirth, even in the form of an ancient fruit tree, so intimidating?

Another favorite of mine was an untitled piece of work, one that might not even qualify to some as true art. It brought back memories of passing notes in class and sometimes getting caught by the teacher. Because I liked to take the time to decorate my notes with small doodles, I was always more likely than others to get chastised by the teacher for not paying attention to lessons or not focusing on in-class assignments.

Straining my eyes, I tried to figure out what the two scrolls in front of me contained. An artifact from the 19th century, the whole scroll was divided into tiny geometric cubicles. Some contained a single artistic character, created with one sweep of the wrist in a shape not unlike the mouth of a fish or a stick figure. Others contained flowers, tadpoles, and trees, all of which were remarkably delicate and of distinctive styles. I could not help but smile, seeing in one corner of the page a fly buzzing around a stanza of verse. There was something very much alive about this work, especially because so many different talents had worked together to create this single piece.

When I finally left the Met in the early hours of the evening to go home, I felt the weight of 5,000 years of art on my shoulders. The history of these pieces was simply amazing, and I considered it such an honor to bear witness to yet another one of the Met’s iconic exhibitions. From the Neolithic age to the Kamakura period, “5,000 Years of Japanese Art” is indeed a treasure for the eyes and for the soul, proving once again that art has no boundaries, geographic, cultural, or otherwise.

For more information, please visit the exhibition’s website. Other notable works from the exhibition include “One Hundred Boys” by Kano Ein? and “Bamboo in the Four Seasons” by Tosa Mitsunobu. “5,000 Years of Japanese Art: Treasures From the Packard Collection” will be on display until June 6, 2010.

Katherine J. Chen is an English major at Princeton University with a certificate in Creative Writing. This is the second time she has visited the Metropolitan Museum in less than two weeks! She is thankful to ChickSpeak for giving her an excuse to hop on a bus to New York and enjoy art on a weekly basis.