Golden Week Lecture Series— Four Masterpieces of Japanese Painting: A Symposium
Masatomo Kawai, Professor Emeritus, Keio University and Senior Academic Advisor, Idemitsu Museum of Arts
May 20, 2007
Seattle Art Museum

First of all, I would like to congratulate the Seattle Art Museum for the successful conservation of two important Japanese folding screens. These works of art show the characteristics of late 16th and early 17th century Japanese painting in this category. I would like to celebrate and share the revived inspiration that these artworks present to you. Today I would like to discuss three important things. First of all, the time period in which these screens were produced, second the theme, and third the stylistic characteristics.

Byōbu folding screens originated in the 8th century, and at this time Japanese artists began painting on these screens. This is an example from The Tale of Genji, a folding screen from the 12th century. [1] At far right is a folding screen and above is shōji, which functioned as a sliding door.

The topics or themes depicted in these screens are Japanese nature and life in that era, as well as some ceremonial events of the time. These themes often alluded to or had connections with Japanese literature. This is another example from The Tale of Genji, and here is another example of shōji screen art. [2] This, however, is different from what you saw earlier because it is more like a Chinese painting. I will not have time to go in-depth into the differences between Chinese and Japanese style painting, but this one has perspective, which was derived from the Chinese painting style, while the Japanese folding screens did not have that type of perspective.

We refer to the Chinese painting style as kara-e, or “Chinese mode.” The Japanese painting style is referred to as yamato-e, or “Japanese mode” as seen in the example to the right. I will now show more of these different examples. This is the pictorial story of the priest Hōnen from the 14th century. [3] On the left you can see the Chinese mode, kara-e, and on the top-right the Japanese mode, yamato-e. Chinese mode and Japanese mode painting motifs were both used in the same period and developed from the 13th century onward. Here I would like to clarify the difference between the terms “mode” and “style.” The reason for the differentiation is that oneartist may be able to paint in either Chinese mode or Japanese mode, even though he has his own style.


The Seattle Art Museum’s Bamboo Grove of Spring and Autumn was executed in the Japanese mode. [4] This is from the mid-16th century, around 1550. Let’s examine the motifs to see if it is truly the Japanese mode I described above. In the left side panel you can see yellow Japanese pond lilies (the red one is a Chinese lily) and plum blossoms in both red and white. The moon above the mountain is reflected in the water below, as you can see through the reeds. In the right side panel you can see bamboo shoots, and a thin bamboo stalk that is still very young. Mature bamboo plants can be seen in the left panel, and to connect these two panels the artist used sparrows flying from left to right. These sparrows signify the season of early spring to early autumn. Sparrows are actually around all year as you know. So, they can at times represent winter. Therefore, this screen may depict all four seasons.

The theme and motif of bamboo and sparrows are seen in many examples of Japanese painting. Priest Hōnen’s biographical pictures clearly show these motifs. [5] All four seasons are depicted here and the moon has strong literary connotations in this painting.

During the process of conservation, the conservator, Mr. Mitsuhiro Abe discovered something very interesting that revealed some new facts and information about this painting. It has to do with the moon [seen below the cloud] – when carefully examined, a crack was discovered in its center. He carefully peeled the top layers and revealed the white backing paper. When the backing paper was carefully peeled away it revealed what was underneath. Under the clouds were patterns, and under the patterns was an under-drawing. In place of the moon, however, there was no under-drawing. Instead, pieces of gold leaf were found. At some point in the history of this painting, someone removed the paper in the shape of the moon and applied gold leaf as if it were the sun. So it was the sun at one point, and now it is once again the moon. To explore the reason for this I will show some examples.

This is a 15th century Japanese-mode painting in which both the sun and moon are depicted, showing the Eastern philosophy of yin and yang. [6] At some point after SAM’s bamboo screen was painted someone wanted to include both the sun and the moon to represent the universe. Sometime after that, someone else thought that this was not rational, as the sun is up in the sky and the moon is reflected in the water. This scientific-minded person decided to revert the sun to the moon, replacing the sun with gray pigment and silver powder to match the reflection on the water. This person was more interested in a naturalistic depiction and decided to make such changes in order to express that. What this shows is how one painting can reflect the different time periods in which it existed, giving clues to what the people of the time thought art should be, how they wanted to view this art, and the aesthetics of that particular era.