All Exhibitions

Japanese Art from the Collection

A painting details the top branches of trees. The green foliage of pine needles and leaves contrasts with the gold background.

Dates

October 26, 2024–ongoing
Location

Freer Gallery of Art | Galleries 5, 6, 6a, 7
Collection Area

Japanese Art

This exhibition highlights both iconic and lesser-known aspects of Japanese culture through paintings and ceramics from the Freer Gallery of Art Collection. Learn about Japanese art with a focus on the environment, notions of the body, historical crises, and new research findings.

Japan’s changing landscapes and local ecologies affected both imagery in paintings and how ceramics were made. Meanwhile, historic crises gave rise to art unique to Japan, such as stoneware repaired with gold (kintsugi) or visual retellings of national stories. Human bodies in art tell us about the emotions an artist wanted to express or the beauty standards of an era. Lastly, analysis of both broken and whole ceramics can give us new insights into how these works were designed, used, and valued.

The works in this exhibition come exclusively from the Freer Gallery of Art Collection, which houses Japanese paintings and ceramics from 3000 BCE to the twentieth century. Our museum’s founder, Charles Lang Freer, donated his collection to the nation in 1906 with the stipulation that the works not be loaned to other institutions or displayed among art from other collections. His gift established our museum and gave the public access to works from across Asia. Learn more about the National Museum of Asian Art’s history.

Gold

Surround yourself with all that glitters, from objects that lure the eye with their impressive mass and exquisite workmanship to subtler glimmers of light and luxury through the addition of a sheer gold leaf, fine gold wire, or a dusting of gold powder. Learn why gold has captivated us for millennia, and find out all the ways it was incorporated into objects across the museum’s collections.

Learn More

A gold-and-black screen with wispily painted reeds, staggered blocks of Japanese calligraphy, and a brushed, speckled gold texture.

Art and the Environment

While it may not be the first thing we think of when looking at a work of art, environmental factors have shaped everything about it, from how it was made, to how it has been perceived and appreciated, to how it has been preserved for today’s audiences. Dive into the complex and interconnected relationships between art and the environment—from images of the natural world to recycling ancient jades—to see our collections in a whole new way.