News & Events

Dr. Ya Decoopman

The Art if Revealing History: The Kasuga gongen genki e and its Re-creations in Seventeenth to Twentieth-century Japan
2019

The early twelfth-century set of illuminated handscrolls known as Kasuga gongen genki e, as a Japanese national treasure, has been widely discussed by researchers from art history and other fields since the beginning of the twentieth century. However, little is known about its re-creations, even though making re-creations has been a common and important practice in Japanese art since the beginning. By comparing the authoritative Kasuga gongen genki e with its five complete re-creations focussing on different aspects such as painting, calligraphy and patronage, this book demonstrates that each re-creation is an individual piece of art with its own aesthetic, social and historical meanings and values. [More information]

Ôsaki Hachiman (1607), located in Sendai, Japan, is one of only a handful of surviving buildings from the Momoyama period (1568–1615). The shrine is a rare example of “lacquered architecture”—an architectural type characterized by a shiny, black coat made of refined tree sap and evocative of transitory splendor and cyclical renewal. The shrine’s sponsor, the warlord Date Masamune, was one of the last independent feudal lords of his time and remains famous for dispatching diplomatic missions to Mexico, Spain, and Rome. Although his ambitions to become a ruler of Northern Japan were frustrated, his shrine stands as a lasting testament to the political struggles he faced, his global aspirations, and the cultural cloak by which he sought to advance these objectives.