another museum, another planet

The MFA gets a lot of criticism in the online world, at times here, for some of its exhibitions and what we will call business decisions.  So it's good every now and then to remember that it's a big museum with a lot of different things happening and many good people working in it.  Two experiences from this past weekend reminded me of this once again: a view of the current exhibition in the Japanese galleries, Pursuits of Power: Falconry and the Samurai, 1600-1900, and a long-overdue trip through the ancient art galleries, which I had not spent any serious time in for months, if not years.  Some remarks on the first of these below:

Pursuits of Power, as the website states, traces the imagery of hunting birds in Edo period Japan, from its origins in the games of the military elite through its eventual adoption by the mercantile class.  The story is told in three tightly focused galleries: the first offers an assortment of armor, screens and hanging scrolls depicting the idealization of the past military exploits of the samurai prior to the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, which solidified their position as an elite caste within a unified Japan.  The second gallery, the heart of the exhibit, shows the use of hunting birds in art commissioned by the samurai class, and the sharp and fierce ethos it chose to express through that imagery.  The final gallery mixes work hinting at the decline of the caste even as the humorous and lyrical art of the rising classes adapted previously forbidden imagery to its own uses.

I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than I could quibble with the argument, but to my highly non-expert eyes, the exhibit seemed a very good use of a range of work to trace out one aspect of a historical change.  But it's the middle gallery one remembers the most.  The space is framed by two screens by the seventeenth century painter Soga Nichokuan, one at either end.  The hawks in these paintings seem to dominate the room, fiercely gazing out over their bare landscapes and the viewer.  In between stands a gem, a painting of a Goshawk Mews on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art (visible in a small image at the bottom of the exhibit's website.)   The dark shapes of the differently aligned birds against the gleam of the gold background seen in the dark of the gallery space are elegant and alluring, but carry the undeniable message of alert vigilance that a privileged military caste sought to emphasize.  Other works in the gallery, such as hanging scroll of young hawks, testify to the pervasive use of bird imagery within elite life, even beyond simple expressions of power.  It goes without saying that all of the work on view is of the highest aesthetic quality.

In the final gallery another screen stands, one depicting a virtual mews of birds - for the samurai of declining fortunes, perhaps, who could no longer afford the real thing.  Meanwhile, as the warriors' fortunes waned in a society that was leaving them behind, the same hunting bird imagery surfaces in woodcuts of children flying kits and sentimental lovers - the simpler art, or ethos, of the traders and artisans.  The samurai's falcons have moved from the windswept eyrie to family life and foibles of the townsmen.

Highly recommended for those who haven't seen it, but go soon: Pursuits of Power closes June 12.

Comments

[Franklin]

I saw this exhibition in December and recommend it highly. I don't know if it's still up, but close by there is was a great little show of early and mid-20.C. kimonos whose designs had been influenced by western movements such as Art Nouveau and Abstract Expressionism.

[eva]

Lovely! I would love this show. I also like those falconers, who ride around with falcons on their wrists. The falcons even have their own helmets, beautifully designed...

[JL]

I think the kimonos are no longer up, though there is an exhibit of swords, I think. It's awful to think that the show was up back in December and I just got to it now, even though I've been to the MFA several times between then and now.

I think there was more small objects related to falconry in one of the cases, but unfortunately one of the lights was out, making it hard to see (the galleries are already dim, given the material on display.) But it was pretty great, nonetheless.