Detail: Japan has enjoyed a long tradition of narrative painting, one that continues even today with the popular contemporary Japanese cartoon (manga) and animation. This exhibition will offer particularly stellar examples of illustrated Japanese narrative works from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century. Drawn from some of the foremost American collections as well as the Museum's own holdings, it will be the first exhibition devoted to this subject in the United States in more than twenty-five years. It will feature more than sixty-five exquisitely executed paintings in various formats: handscroll (emaki), album, book, hanging scroll, screen, and playing cards.
The exhibition will be organized in five thematic sections: Buddhist and Shinto tales, celebratory tales, tales of warriors and women, romantic tales, and tales of animals and the supernatural. Works on view will include the twelfth-century fragment from Choju giga that is said to be the oldest extant Japanese manga. The piece, which captures animals in human-like behavior, can be read as a satire on contemporary society. Also featured are A Long Tale for an Autumn Night (Aki no Yonaga Monogatari), a rare set of three handscrolls illustrating the romance between a mature Buddhist monk and a young male novice; and Drunken Demons, a fantastic illustration in which giant demons are defeated by legendary samurai warriors. The exhibition will also include a handscroll, a book, and a screen illustrating the climactic scene of The Great Woven Cap, in which a female diver is chased by a dragon form.