The Art of Itō Jakuchū

National Gallery of Art
East Building, Large Auditorium
Friday, March 30, 2012, 10 am

In spring 2012, Washington, DC, marked the centennial of Japan’s gift of 3,000 cherry trees to the United States with three extraordinary exhibitions of Japanese art. The Freer and Sackler Galleries presented Hokusai: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, featuring the most famous print series by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849),and Masters of Mercy: Buddha’s Amazing Disciples, with selections from a seminal ensemble by Kano Kazunobu (1816–1863). The National Gallery of Art presented Colorful Realm: Japanese Bird and Flower Paintings by Itō Jakuchū (1716–1800), a rare opportunity to view one of Japan's most renowned cultural treasures.

Coinciding with these exhibitions, Freer|Sackler and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts cosponsored a daylong conference titled “The Art of Itō Jakuchū” to present new research on the paintings of Jakuchū and his contemporaries. Japanese and American scholars explored a broad range of art-historical questions, including issues of materiality, content, and meaning, as a way of working towards a re-imagination of the artist and this body of work in early modern Japan.

Speakers include Ota Aya, Andrew Hare, Tsuji Nobuo, Jennifer Perry, Shironi Seiji, Yoshiaki Shimizu, Kobayashi Tadashi, Hayakawa Yasuhiro, and Oka Yasuhiro.

Conference Program (PDF, 134kb)