Restored
16th- and 17th-Century Japanese Scrolls Go on View at The New York Public
Library
Rare Opportunity to See Treasures
of Japanese Art, January 18 - March 2, 2002
New
York, January 10, 2002 -- Warriors
shoot arrows from astride galloping steeds, poets repose lost in thought,
and idealized courtly life unfolds in a brilliant selection of Japanese
scrolls from The New York Public Library's Spencer Collection, on view
in Immortal Treasures: Japanese Handscrolls from the Spencer Collection.
Resplendent with color and gold leaf or starkly elegant in black-and-white
ink, the scrolls, dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
represent a wide range of themes and genres in Japanese art and literature.
All eight scrolls, which are among the finest in the Library's collection
of some 400 scrolls, recently underwent conservation in Japan as part
of The Project for the Conservation of Works of Japanese Art in Foreign
Collections. The exhibition will be on view in the Sue and Edgar Wachenheim
III Gallery of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library at Fifth Avenue
and 42nd Street from January 18 through March 2, 2002. Admission is free.
The
handscrolls exhibited in Immortal Treasures derive from Japan's
rich and ancient literary tradition. By the twelfth century the profusely
illustrated narrative handscroll (emaki) was fully developed as
a major form and reached its zenith of popularity in the following two
centuries. The format was revived at various times from the Momoyama period
(1573–1615) through the Edo period (1615–1868).
Among the scrolls on view is a late sixteenth-century (late Muromachi
to Momoyama period) version of the Sanjurokkasen Emaki (Handscroll
of the Thirty-six Immortal Poets), the earliest known, fully intact scroll
of the Fujifusa type, with thirty-six meticulously painted, imaginary
portraits of the most highly esteemed men and women poets of the Heian
period (794–1185). The scroll also includes caligrafied biographies
of the writers and samples of their poetry, the thirty-one syllable poetic
form known as waka. Deriving from kana, the Japanese phonetic writing
system, waka developed as the poetic means of expressing ideas and emotions.
This specifically Japanese form flourished particularly among aristocratic
women, who were discouraged from scholarly or artistic pursuits dependent
on the Chinese language. The scroll will be unrolled to the less often
exhibited section of women poets. The stylized portraits depict women
reclining in voluminous kimono, with the straight, waistlong black hair
fashionable in the Heian period. One poet, reputed to be a very shy and
modest woman, is always shown from the back.
The second large scroll on view is a brilliantly colored and gilded early
Edo-period masterpiece. It is a single scroll from the acclaimed mid-seventeenth
century, twelve-volume set of the Taiheiki Emaki (Handscroll of
the Chronicle of Great Peace), attributed to the well-known painter Kaiho
Yusetsu (1598–1677), depicting episodes from the classic fourteenth-century
military epic, the Taiheiki Monogatari (Taiheiki Story). The sweeping
composition contains scenes of battles among archers and mounted warriors,
courtiers and military leaders in conference, an assemblage of otherworldly
creatures, fleeing refugees, and a dance performance rendered in a style
and technique similar to Yusetsu's paintings on folding screens. Compiled
over time from recorded texts and oral tradition, the Taiheiki,
a revered Japanese classic, recounts the fifty-year political and military
struggle among warring factions loyal to the Emperor and the Shogun of
the Nambokucho period (North and South courts, 1336–1392). The Library's
scroll covers approximately four of the epic's forty chapters.
The final work in the exhibition, the Hakubyo Genji Monogatari Emaki
("White Drawing" Handscrolls of the Tale of Genji), consists
of six miniature scrolls and is the earliest dated illustrated version
of this classic work, (1554, Muromachi period) and signed by Keifukuin
Gyokuei, an aristocratic amateur woman painter from Kyoto. The Tale
of Genji, the story of the amorous exploits of Prince Genji, was written
around the year 1000 by another woman, Lady Murasaki Shikibu, and is often
considered to be the world's first great novel. Working in the spare and
monochromatic hakubyo (white drawing) style, with thin black lines
and flat contoured shapes, the artist masterfully evokes the opulence
of Prince Genji's world.
Project for the Conservation of Works of Japanese Art in Foreign Collections
Initiated in 1991 by the Tokyo National Research Institute of Cultural
Properties in cooperation with the Agency for Cultural Affairs and the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, the Project for the Conservation
of Works of Japanese Art in Foreign Collections was established to make
a major contribution to the appreciation and preservation of Japan's cultural
heritage through the conservation of important art treasures held in museums
and other institutions outside Japan. The Library's Spencer Collection
joined the project in 1998.
A number of handscrolls were selected by Robert Rainwater, curator of
the Spencer Collection, from the collection's holdings of about four hundred
scrolls, based on their artistic and historical importance and physical
condition. These scrolls were then examined at the Library by a team of
conservators, art historians, and administrators from the Tokyo National
Research Institute and eight were selected for treatment. From May 1998
through May 2000, these scrolls, among the greatest treasures in the Spencer
Collection, were given extensive treatment in studios in the Tokyo National
Museum and the Kyoto National Museum. Teams of five or six conservators
and apprentices worked for as many months on a single scroll. The painstaking
process required separating the old and often very thin painted surface
paper from the backing papers and replacing them with new, acid-free archival
paper. The silk brocade and endpapers were also replaced and new casings
were created for the scrolls. Tears or damage to the surface papers were
repaired; however, the paintings themselves were not filled in or retouched
in any way.
Treatment of all art objects was performed in leading studios in Japan
under the supervision of Japanese painting conservation specialists. Traditional
materials and technical skills, rarely available outside Japan, were employed
in combination with the highest international standards of conservation
practice. Direct costs for treatment were paid by the Tokyo National Research
Institute for Cultural Properties, and funding for the Project was provided
in part by the Art Research Foundation of Japan and other sources.
The Spencer Collection
The Spencer Collection of Illustrated Books, Manuscripts and Fine Bindings
was established by the bequest of the American expatriate collector William
Augustuts Spencer, who died aboard the Titanic in 1912. Along with
his personal collection of 232 primarily French nineteenth-century illustrated
and sumptuously bound books, the gift included a generous endowment fund
and a directive to acquire the finest illustrated books and manuscripts
produced in any country, language, or period. Today the Spencer Collection
comprises more than 10,000 objects and surveys the illustrated word and
beautiful bindings from medieval manuscripts, Japanese scrolls, Islamic
manuscripts, and Indian miniatures to contemporary livres d'artiste.
The holdings of Asian manuscripts and books rival museum collections in
the U.S. and abroad. Most significant among these are the nearly 400 Japanese
handscrolls, albums, and folding manuscripts, ranging from twelfth-century
Heian-period Buddhist sutras to early twentieth-century Meiji handscrolls.
This exhibition publicly acknowledges the Library's sincere gratitude
to the Tokyo National Research Institute of Cultural Properties and its
collaborators in Japan, to the Art Research Foundation of Japan, and especially
to the conservators whose extraordinary skills and dedication made possible
the renewal and extended life of some of The New York Public Library's
greatest treasures.
Support for The New York Public Library's Exhibitions Program has been
provided by Pinewood Foundation and by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III.
Japanese Treasures: Narrative Handscrolls from the Spencer Collection
will be on view from January 18 through March 2, 2002 at The New York
Public Library's Humanities and Social Sciences Library in the Sue and
Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery. Exhibition hours are Monday and Thursday
through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Tuesday and Wednesday from 11
a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; closed Sundays and national holidays. Admission is
free. For more information about exhibitions at The New York Public Library,
the public may call 212.869.8089 or visit the Library's website at www.nypl.org.
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Contact: Sabina Potaczek and Herb Scher at 212.221.7676
(spotaczek@nypl.org, hscher@nypl.org)
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spotaczek: pro
