In the Japanese painting tradition, no single style or theme prevails. Instead, for centuries, Japanese painters have devoted their skills to the creation of exquisite folding screens, hanging scrolls and hand scrolls. The Hood Museum of Art presents a unique opportunity to explore this tradition in its newest exhibition, "Screens and Scrolls: Japanese Painting from the Ackland Art Museum."
The exhibit offers a wide variety of themes and styles, grouped under the headings of four major traditional Japanese formats. The works on display range in date from the thirteenth through the early nineteenth centuries.
"The exhibit really surveys several different styles of painting, including Japan's early influences from China and until it mastered its own style," Hood Public Relations Coordinator Sharon Reed said.
While the majority of the pieces are on loan from the Ackland Art Museum, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, works from Harvard University Art Museums and the Hood Museum are included as well.
The exhibit opens to numerous hanging scrolls featuring such divergent subject matter as Buddhist iconography and landscapes. The religious hanging scrolls, often called icon paintings, were meant for use in temples and are characteristically hung on metal rollers. These scrolls tend to be painted on silk and offer varying perceptions of Buddha and his earthly counterpart Bodhisattva.
In these icon paintings, simplicity was not an option. The extensive ornamentation used and expensive materials applied made the iconic depiction all the more powerful. This emphasis on grandeur is deeply rooted in Buddhist tradition, and is not an idea peculiar to Japanese Buddhist painting.
Assistant Professor of Art History Allen Hockley, who curated the exhibit, carefully selected each piece for display in the Hood Museum. In his selection of religious hanging scrolls, Hockley chose examples rooted in esoteric, pure land and Zen Buddhism.
Landscape hanging scrolls are another focal point of the exhibit. The painter of a splashed-ink Zen landscape probably produced the work in less than five minutes. In this spontaneous Zen style, the Zen monk engages the spiritual as a personal expression, not intending his piece to be viewed publicly.
Another splash-ink landscape neighbors the Zen work, but this piece was not produced from a spiritual expression. A product of the famous Kano School, the scroll was created for profit.
Still, the greatest differences between each hanging scroll is found not so much in the subject matter but more in the hanging of the scrolls themselves. The painting is only the first step in a lengthy process of producing the hanging scroll. After the painter had completed his work, he would turn his piece over to someone else who would be responsible for mounting it. The materials and designs of each scroll differ and are integral aspects of the works themselves.
In Japanese painting, the viewing experience is of utmost importance. Unlike Western art, Japanese paintings are designed with the intention of being viewed from a seated or kneeling position. Thus, the hanging scrolls in the exhibit are hung at their appropriate heights and will offer a very different experience when viewed from down low.
The viewing experience associated with folding screens is tied closely to their decorative appeal. These six or eight-paneled screens are essentially painted furniture, often acting as room dividers. The subject of these screens would undoubtedly affect the mood of the space in which they were placed.
The exhibit features three sets of folding screens indicative of the Japanese tradition from which each emerged. Two of the works integrate a pair of related screens. Each screen was painted in single panels, and once painted, the panels were turned over to the mounters who put the completed work together.
In the paired screens, great weight is given to the imagery of the outside corners. Toward the center of the screens, the scenes become more airy and sparse. In these paired compositions, the painters had to take the space separating the two screens into account, often utilizing a visual connection across the space between them.
The folds of these large screens also presented an opportunity for the painters to escape the confines of two-dimensional painting. The precise placement of the images on the screens is intended to take advantage of the folds, adding a more three-dimensional quality to the objects within each scene.
Like the hanging scrolls, the subject matter of the folding screens range from animal depictions to landscapes. In one screen of the Kano School, whose works were produced for profit, the artist depicts "The Seven Sages in a Bamboo Grove." These sages were said to have been Taoists who rejected Confucian teachings and opted instead for the cultivation of their individuality through reclusion. This set of paired screens shows the great skill of the Kano painters, in their meticulous brush strokes and shading.
The exhibit also features hand scrolls, a Japanese art form intended for intimate, individual viewing. Hand scrolls are viewed from the right to left side by unrolling a small section of the scroll, viewing that section, and rolling it again to view a new section. The viewing experience is meant to be solitary and active.
In a hand scroll from the Hood Museum's collection, entitled "Tale of Genji", the artist has created a great narrative of the Japan's legendary story. Each section of the scroll's narrative is approximately shoulder width, as would be the comfortable size for singular viewing. In this scroll, each scene represents an entire chapter of the Genji narrative. Each scene is flanked by text highlighting key elements of the chapter. Chapters three, four and five are unrolled for display in the exhibit.
A second hand scroll offers a glimpse into a different artistic technique. "Figures Viewing Cherry Blossoms" does not tell a story as does the Genji scroll. Instead, continuous imagery carries the viewer along at his or her own pace.
Unlike the Genji scroll, which is broken up into chapters, "Cherry Blossoms" moves along with the landscape and the actions of the people who are viewing the blossoms.
The fourth format displayed in "Screens and Scrolls" is album painting. Essentially, the artists used these albums to demonstrate various aspects of their work, serving almost as a representative catalogue of their styles. For example, in "Rocks", the artist shows his use of different brush styles, while in "Birds and Flowers", the artist shows his skill in subject and compositional changes.
The Japanese painting tradition covers an expansive breadth of imagery and stylistic territory. Each painting format evokes a viewing experience unlike that which many museum visitors have seen before. "Screens and Scrolls" offers a rare opportunity to learn a great deal about Japanese painting through some of Japan's most timeless and renowned art forms.
