Exhibition Outlines

After the Meiji Restoration, Japan rapidly promoted westernization, aiming to establish itself as a modern state. However, this led to destruction of antiques and old items due to the Haibutsu-kishaku (a movement to abolish Buddhism), and outflowing of art and craft works to foreign countries. Therefore, a trend to preserve old Japanese tradition heightened since around the early 1880's. Overlapping with the restoration thought which occurred in the end of the Edo period, a large number of art works conscious of old art before the middle era as classics, were created with motifs, forms, techniques influenced by those classics in the painting and craft divisions. Many were only adaptions of classical work, but gradually works brimming with new taste, were created integrating the essence of the classics along with the artists' originality and modern progressive spirit, instead of only imitating their appearances. Even after the Taisho period, artists earnestly faced towards classical works, each discovered their own beauty within them, and created new works with originality. These works which were created subliming the classics, were highly esteemed and purchased at exhibitions etc., by the Imperial family and the Imperial Household Ministry, which recognized the importance in protecting tradition. Furthermore, there are many noteworthy works among those created to be presented to the Imperial Household.

In this exhibition, we will introduce modern artworks with subtle charm which arouse a clearly modern sense, even though modelled after classical works. We hope it will be an opportunity to rediscover the richness of the Japanese art ground, which had always been a source of creativity for the artists of the Meiji, Taisho and Showa periods.