250-year-old Japanese artworks paint a colorful world

Japanese art enthusiasts will have something to look forward to at the National Gallery of Art this spring when the museum hosts an exhibit in celebration of the 100th Annual Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C.

Japanese painter Ito Jakuchu’s “Colorful Realm of Living Beings,” a renowned 30-scroll set of bird and flower paintings, which had rarely been displayed collectively, will be at the Gallery from March 30 to April 29. The exhibit focuses on scenes in nature to commemorate Japan’s gift of Japanese cherry blossom trees to the United States back in 1912.

Nine scrolls from the “Colorful Realm” were put on display at the Smithsonian in 1997, and 10 were displayed in Los Angeles in 1989, but this is the first time all 30 scrolls are presented together in D.C. The Imperial Household in Japan has owned the paintings since 1889 and is once again imparting a gift of Japanese culture on American soil.

“It’s not a blockbuster in size, but in content and cultural importance,” Harvard University art history professor Yukio Lippit said of Jakuchu’s set. “He captures the exactness of nature.”

Lippit is the guest curator for the exhibit and said that the Japanese Embassy wanted to mark the 100th anniversary of the cherry blossoms with a meaningful presentation of Japanese art. “The most important work of art [among Japanese nature paintings] is the collection by Ito Jakuchu,” he said.

Jakuchu (1716–1800) completed the collection in the late 18th century and focused on depictions of animals in natural settings. His paintings were based upon techniques of the period, such as woodblock printing and highly naturalistic details, but combined them with a unique approach to forms and shapes, Lippit said.

Jakuchu, possibly Japan’s most famous pre-modern painter, grew up in a fairly wealthy family, but preferred painting and Zen-Buddhism to mercantile activities. He retired from the family’s grocery at 40 to solely focus on painting and self-cultivation, becoming very famous in his time.

Though Japanese art has transformed over the years, Lippit said artists continue to rediscover Jakuchu and provide new interpretations. In the 1960s, he was “framed as an eccentric,” Lippit said, partly because of the then changing culture of Japan. In the 1990s, Jakuchu became a paradigm for those who were single-mindedly interested in a specific hobby, as he was known to focus on his art, religion and not much else.

In more recent times, however, the perception of Jakuchu has changed as more information has been discovered. Though he was previously seen as somewhat of a hermit, late in his life, Jakuchu led a three-year campaign to overturn a city ruling that required the shutdown of his family’s grocery, displaying “personal and business skills” that weren’t often attributed to him, Lippit said.

Jakuchu’s exhibit is a celebration of both Japan’s relationship with the U.S. and Japanese influences in American art, which are largely seen in animation. Neal McDonald, Assistant Animation and Interactive Media professor at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, said the connection goes back to the 19th century and the Impressionist era.

“American art has really grown up in its own right,” McDonald said, “whereas Asian art has been there.” He added that the impact of Japanese animation on American culture is not to be underestimated.