Lectures & Symposia

Image credit: Detail from a copy of the Illustrated Biographies of the Founding of the Kegon School (total seven handscrolls originally created in the 13th century); Kano Ansen (1823–1892) and others

Kimura Hajime, from the Matagi series, 2008. (c) Kimura Hajime, image courtesy of the artist.

Detail from Views of Scenic Sites Itsukushima and Wakanoura Shrines; Edo period, pair of six-panel folding screens, ink and color on gold leaf; Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

Mother-of-pearl inlaid lacquer tray decorated with a dragon chasing a flaming pearl amid crashing waves; China, Yuan period (1206-1368), d. 33.0 cm; Tokyo National Museum.

Kano Eitoku (1543–1590); Chinese Lions; 16th century; six-panel folding screen; ink and color on gold; Imperial Household Collection.

Spring and Summer Palace Gardens, from The Tale of Genji; 17th century; six-panel folding screen; ink, color, and gold on paper; Overall 67 × 141 inches (170.2 cm × 3 m 58.1 cm); Detroit Institute of Art, City of Detroit Purchase, 27.541

© Koji Mayuyama

Xu Sangeng (1826-1890), face of seal reading “Difeng, style name Yuesheng,” ca. 1880, soapstone, 5.5 x 5.5 cm, Zhejiang Provincial Museum.

Parc Oriental de Maulévrier, France; photographed by Aida Yuen Wong, 2024. 

Fuji Pilgrimage Mandala (Fuji sankei mandara); Edo period, seventeenth century; hanging scroll, ink and colors on paper, 178.6 x 144.6 cm; Shōeiji, Aichi Prefecture, Japan (in the care of Kaguyahime Museum, Shizuoka, Japan).

Portrait of Honda Heihachirō (Important cultural property); two-panel folding screen; Edo period, 17th century;Tokugawa Art Museum.

Anonymous, “Oh, for the
Blessings of Tranquility.” Woodblock print, ink and colors on paper, 1855. National Museum of Japanese History, Sakura, Japan.

Installation view : Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World, Guggenheim Museum, 2017. Photo: David Heald.

Enokura Kōji. Quality of Wetness, 1970. Gelatin silver print, 16.2 × 24 cm. Art Institute of Chicago. (Photo-documentation of a work originally presented at Space Totsuka ’70.)

Main Hall altar from the east; Yakushiji, Nara.

Hadachi Osamu at work in Yungang, Cave 19. 1939; Photo in Nagahiro Toshio, Unkō nikki Taisenchu no bukkyo sekō chiyōsa, 雲岡日記：大戰中の仏教石窟調查 (Yungang Dairy: War-time Expeditions to Buddhist Grottoes), Tokyo: NHK Press, 1988.

Sakai Hōitsu 酒井抱一 (1761-1828); Birds and Flowers of the Twelve Months (Detail from Tenth Month); Edo period, c. 1820-1828; Set of twelve hanging scrolls; ink, color, and gold on silk; Promised Gift of Robert S. and Betsy G. Feinberg, Harvard Art Museums.

Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743) and Ogata Korin (1658-1716); Square dish with design of Eight Bridges (1712-16); glazed earthenware with underglaze drawing in iron; National Museum of Asian Art.

Mitsutani Kunishirō; Flowers, circa 1910; oil on canvas; private collection.

Katsushika Ōi (ca. 1800–1860); Yoshiwara at Night, ca. 1850; woodblock print; Ōta Museum of Art.

Sesshū Tōyō (1420–1506); detail from "Splashed Ink Landscape" (Haboku sansui zu), 1495; ink on paper; Tokyo National Museum.

Unkei (d. 1223); Miroku with the Hossō Patriarch Muchaku and Seshin (Maitreya with the Hossō Patriarchs Asanga and Vasubandhu); Kamakura period, dated 1212; North Octagonal Hall, Kōfukuji, Nara.

Teapot with black peony blossoms and date of 1913; porcelain; British Museum.

Detail from Spring Morning in the Han Palace, twelve-panel lacquer screen; Qing dynasty, Kangxi reign, 1672; Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1906.42.

Katsura Yuki, Gonbe and Crow, 1966. Copyright Katsura Akinari, Courtesy of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

“National Border Tokara Archipelago: Deserting Islands” by Takuma Nakahira from the March 1977 issue of Asahi Camera © Gen Nakahira

Nachi Sankei Mandara; 16th-17th century; hanging scroll, ink and color on paper, 59 7/8 x 64 3/4 in.; Gitter-Yelen Collection, New Orleans.

Chinese Sages (detail)
Japan, Momoyama period, late 16th-early 17th century
Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink on paper
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation Fund, Gift of Florence and Herbert Irving, by exchange, and Brooke Russell Astor Bequest, 2020 (2020.359.1, .2) 

Shinohara Ushio, Oiran, c. 1966. Fluorescent paint, lacquer paint, and acrylic sheet on canvas mounted on board; 26.5 x 26.3 x 3.7 cm. Private collection (formerly collection of Naiqua Gallery/Miyata Kunio). Photo © Gilbert Plantinga. 

Vase with elephant-headed handles (detail); Yuan (1271-1368) - Ming (1368-1644) dynasty, 14th to 15th century; Bronze, H. 11 in. (28 cm); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Barbara and William Karatz Gift, 2019 (2019.264).

Anrakuji Emi, untitled, from the series IPY (2007/2008), C-Print, 16.5 x 12 in. Courtesy the artist and Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery, New York.

Detail of Unkei (d. 1223), Mujaku bosatsu (Asanga), National Treasure; Kamakura period, ca. 1212. Wood with polychromy and rock crystal eyes. Kōfukuji, Nara.

Detail of Butsugen Butsumo (Buddhalocani), National Treasure; Heian Period, 12th century; ink and color on silk; 197 x 127.9 cm; Kōzanji, Kyoto.

Ceremony at the Shishinden Viewed from the Shomei Gate, 1928; color lithograph; ink on card stock; 8.9 x 14 cm; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Sun Kehong (1532-1610), detail from Copying Model Books; handscroll, Ht. 27.9 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.

Japanese Chest, ca. 1635–1645; lacquer, gold and silver foil, crystal, copper; 63.5 cm x 144.5 cm; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Evgeny Steiner, Hokusai Manga, published in Russian, 2017

Hungry Tigress Jataka panel, from the Tamamushi Shrine, c. 650, Hōryū-ji Treasure House, Hōryū-ji, Nara; lacquer on wood.

Tosa Mitsuoki (1617–1691). Portrait-Icon of Murasaki Shikibu. Edo period (1615–1868), 17th century. Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk; 35 5/8 x 20 3/4 in. (90.5 x 52.7 cm). Ishiyamadera Temple, Shiga Prefecture, Courtesy of Ishiyamadera Temple, photo 

“New Herbs (Wakana)” from the Tale of Genji; Tosa Mitsuyoshi (1593-1613); album leaf; ink, color, gold, and gold leaf on paper; Kyoto National Museum

Fujita Tsuguharu, detail from Events in Akita, 1937. Oil on canvas, 365 x 2050 cm. Hirano   Masakichi Foundation. Tsuguharu Foujita © 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York /  ADAGP, Paris.

Mandala of the Hosso School (late Heian–Kamakura periods, 12th century); panel; ink, color, gold, and silver on silk; 89.2 x 58 cm; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Fenollosa-Weld Collection, 11.4053

Image credit: Yook Myung-shim, c. 1966

Detail from Taishokan Narrative (early seventeenth century), manuscript dismantled and pasted onto a folding screen; ink, gold and color on paper. Private collection, Japan.

White-robed Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva Gazing at the Moon (detail), Kenchōji, Kamakura, 15th century; hanging scroll from a set of 32; ink on silk.

Unkoku Tōgan, Landscape, Muromachi or Momoyama Period, 16th century. Ink, gold, and tint on paper. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1907.134

Photo by Naohiro Tsutsuguchi (Shinchosha) ©2009 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

Detail from Konda sōbyō engi emaki, 1433

Detail from The City of Great Peace, early nineteenth century, Korea. Eight-panel screen, ink and colors on silk, 113.6 x 49.1 (each panel), National Museum of Korea, Seoul.