Detail: Hours: 10 am to 5 pm (entrance closed at 4:30 pm)
Open until 7 pm (entrance closed at 6:30 pm), from April 29th to May 5th
General admission: Adult 1200 yen, Student 1000 yen

One of the eight exhibitions at the museum to celebrate the reopening of the newly renovated museum. A pair of gold-ground six-panel screens. A single expanse of iris plants, vividly and gloriously depicted in shades of malachite green and azurite blue. Designated a National Treasure by the Japanese government, the Irises screens by Ogata Kōrin are one of the masterpieces of Japanese painting. Kōrin used his sublime painting skills and an innovative composition in this stylized rendition of the scene at Yatsuhashi in Mikawa province, a site renowned for its irises as heralded in the 9th chapter of classic Japanese story, The Tales of Ise. The hero of The Tales, Ariwara no Narihira, composed a poem about the Yatsuhashi irises and his homesickness as he traveled to the east, away from his home in the capital Kyoto. Kōrin's calculated positioning of each plump blossom, each stalk and arching leaf results in a truly inimitable composition. After an absence of four years from the galleries, including the reconstruction period, once again the Irises screens adorn the early summer galleries of the Nezu.
The galleries are completed by a full display of the Nezu's paintings by Rimpa school painters. Innovative, classically elegant, and boldly designed forms combine with supremely fine detail -- we hope you will enjoy this splendid realm of Rimpa beauty.