A companion exhibition to Symbol and Substance: The Elaine Ehrenkranz Collection of Japanese Lacquer Boxes (closed January 3, 1999), Nature as Metaphor reveals that similar themes and styles inform East Asian paintings and Japanese lacquer designs alike. The exhibition introduces a selection of later Chinese, Korean and Japanese paintings that feature the details of nature, rather than its vast panorama, as their principal subject matter. The paintings encompass a wide range of themes and styles but focus on that genre known as bird-and-flower painting.

Japanese lacquers manifest a pictorialism unknown in China's carved cinnabar lacquers or in Korea's mother-of-pearl-inlaid lacquers. The birds and flowers, and even the figures and landscapes, that ornament Japanese lacquers find parallels in painted screens and scrolls. In traditional Japan, artists such as Ogawa Haritsu (1663-1747) and Shibata Zeshin (1807-1891), among others, were as well known for their lacquers as for their paintings, a circumstance that naturally forged close links between the two-dimensional and three-dimensional arts; by contrast, such breadth of proficiency was virtually unknown amongst artists in China and Korea. Thus, the exhibition, which includes nearly one-hundred scrolls, album pages, ceramics, fans and other decorative art objects, will help to place Japanese lacquer in the greater context of East Asian art.

Nature as Metaphor also introduces a selection of later Chinese, Korean and Japanese paintings that feature the details of nature, rather than its vast panorama, as their principal subject matter. Although the landscape, with its towering mountains and rushing streams, was the most important subject matter of later East Asian painting, it was never the only focus. The human figure also occupied a distinguished place as a subject in the painting of East Asia as did the flora and fauna of nature. The paintings encompass a wide range of themes and styles but focus on that genre known as bird-and-flower painting. These same themes frequently grace Chinese, Korean, and Japanese lacquers, ceramics, and other decorative arts of the day. East Asian artists developed rich traditions of bird-and-flower painting, the plants, in particular, often standing as symbols of human values.

Related Events:

Gallery Talks:

Saturday, September 11, 11:30 a.m.
Michael Bass, curatorial assistant, Department of Asian Art

Saturday, October 9, 11:30 a.m.
Melissa Moy, assistant curator of Chinese art

Saturday, November 20, 11:30 a.m.
Anne Rose Kitagawa, assistant curator for Japanese art

Nature as Metaphor is organized by Robert D. Mowry, curator of Chinese art and supported with funds from the John M. Rosenfield Teaching Exhibition Fund. Press Release.