365 Days at the Met

September 26, 2018 Gallery 226 has only two displays. One is a large room constructed in 1985 by Japanese craftsmen and modeled on the main room of the guest residence  of a temple outside Kyoto. It uses materials and techniques typical of the Momoyama period (1573-1615) and is notable for its high ceilings and the harmony of the warm tan and brown tones of its wooden beams, tatami mats, and sliding screens. Along one of the room's walsl is a long platform above which hangs a scroll with three large. bold characters that mean "profound sincerity," a state of mind considered important for achieving enlightenment. The room has no furniture. I'm not clear about the purpose to which such a room would have been put. It is easy, however, to imagine a group of priests sitting on the floor in silent meditation while facing  the platform and the scroll. The second display, shown in the photo, is of another pair of six-panel screens that were painted in the early 17th...

September 24, 2018 This gallery (225) has a small number of painted screens and scolls. A caption on the wall describes two major traditions of Japanese painting from about the 1600s forward:  "Japanese" and "Chinese." From the little I can understand, it seems that "Japanese" paintings are those that incorporate traditional landscape themes, scenes from Japanese literature, and particular styles of representation (e.g., Rimpa). "Chinese" painting is marked by monochromatic palettes and virtuosic brushwork. All this said, I am incapable of distinguishing one from the other, at least based on the works on exhibit in this gallery. The philistine idea that "I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like" comes to me in this room. (Actually, I'm a little surprised that it hasn't occurred to me sooner.) What I like is a set of two companion six-panel folding screens painted in the early 1820s by Sakai Hotsu, th...

September 21, 2018 This small gallery (224) is devoted to Rinpa, a representational style that arose in the 17th century. According to the caption, it emphasized "bold, exaggerated, or purely graphic renderings of natural motifs" and formalized depictions of poets, scholars, and fictional characters. The caption goes on to say that Rinpa art tended toward simplification, sometimes achieved through exaggeration. I have no idea what "purely graphic renderings of natural motifs" means. But today's object, a scroll painting in ink and color on silk by Suzuki Kitsu (1796-1858) measuring  perhaps 26 inches across and 18 inches high, certainly exemplifies simplification. The painting's  title, "Crane and Pine Tree with Rising Sun," perfectly describes the painting, which contains only these three elements. The composition is balanced along a diagonal that runs from the lower left to the upper right corner. Below the diagonal are the gnarled bran...

September 20, 2018 Gallery 224 holds Buddhist scrolls and sculptures dating  from the late 12th or 13th century forward.  Today's object is a hanging scroll, pehaps 30 inches long, painted in ink, color, and gold by Sakai Hotsu in 1823. It depicts the bodhissatva Kannon in an outdoor setting. What is striking to me is the mix of calm and turbulence in the image.  Kannon is sitting cross-legged in the lotus position. His  hands are folded in his lap; his eyes are open but lowered. He appears to be in a meditative state.    He is dressed in white robes that stand out against the greige  silk background. His skin appears to be nearly the same color as that background, although his lips are pink and his cheeks also have a pinkish tinge.  He wears a headdress embellished with gold decorations, along with a gold necklace.  The limited palette of colors in which the figure is painted contributes to the sense of tranquillity.  ...

September 17, 2018 With gallery 223, I enter the Japanese collection and immediately realize how extraordinarily little I know about Japanese history and culture, so much so that when I see a recognizably Buddhist sculpture and other Buddhist images, they  seem like old friends. In particular, I know almost nothing about Shintoism -- whose importance in Japanese art seems beyond dispute,  even from the few objects in this introductory gallery, although it  seems to be guided by a belief in animism, with gods present in such natural phenomena as waterfalls and mountains. I'm intrigued by two scroll paintings from the 18 and 19th centuries that depict a legendary third-century woman warrior empress named Jingu. In both images she appears in white robes that don't look particularly womanly; she holds a large bow and has a quiver of arrows  slung over her back. Given the submissiveness we associate with women's roles in ancient (and even modern) Japan, it is i...

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started my explorations in the Chinese galleries. But I'm struck by a number of things. First is the continuity of some of the traditions and the modes of representation, a continuity that  almost rivals that of Egyptian art. The dragon motif seems present from the Shang dynasty forward, for example. Similarly, later landscape painters respected and built on the work of earlier artists and incorporated long-standing elements of landscapes (rivers, mountains, trees) into their compositions.  I am not enough of a connoisseur, unfortunately, to recognize easily the differences as well as the similarities among the landscape scrolls unless these differences are very obvious. Second, and related, is the importance of the landscape itself.  Egyptian artists sometimes showed animals and plants, but I recall few expansive landscape scenes, and the same is true of Roman artists, except for the murals that adorned villas. But nature play...

September 12, 2018 Gallery 222 contains works that reprise the theme of figural representation, this time presenting images of Buddhist and Daoist immortals. The gallery also houses a collection of jade objects given to the museum.   One piece I notice is an 18th or 19th century rock  crystal statuette of a bearded "drunken immortal," who lies on his side asleep. I realize that I may be wrong in assuming that opprobrium was attached to drunkenness. Maybe it was perceived as a means of achieving a visionary, transcendant state? Most of the jade leaves me cold, I confess, although I recognize the craft and skill involved in carving such a hard substance. But I can't help but admire today's object, a jade plaque about 10 inches long and perhaps 8 inches high. Dating from the  18th century and carved in deep relief, it shows Laozi, the founder of Daoism, riding a beast (a water buffalo?) along a narrow ridge trail in the mountains. The trail appears to be s...