In 1999 one of the seminar highlights for me was my first visit to the Miho Museum in rural Shiga Prefecture.  I was so taken by the museum itself, designed by I. M. Pei, that I devoted an entire report last year to documenting aspects of the delightful architectural results.

This year the day at the Miho was highlighted by an amazing special exhibit unlike any I have ever seen. The exhibition focused on Shirazu Masako, a well-known woman writer who died a couple of years ago at the age of eighty-eight.  She came from a prominent family well connected to both the governmental and the literary and artistic elites of twentieth century Japan.  

The exhibit featured artifacts she had collected during her lifetime, tied to references to these same items in her extensive writings.  The end result?  A fascinating exploration of the way in which contemporary Japanese culture even today continues to reflect the influences of the past in such a way as to enrich a future yet unwritten!

For example, associated with an Oribe ware teabowl, we read the following: " At first I did not notice Yobitsugi [the name of the teabowl on display nearby].  But then the green of the tea and the softness of the teabowl slowly seeped into me and with the good feel of the rim on my lips, it was truly delicious tea I enjoyed."

Then come these words at a later point in the exhibit, tied to the study of classical no drama: " The arts are all like this, inexhaustible, and this can all be summed up in the complete expression found in the single tea cup placed on the palm of one hand."

A small bell is illuminated by this quotation: " When I am lonely, I ring this bell, releasing the sounds of the Suiko era. ... When I think back on that time [now], those thoughts bear none of the bittersweet pain of longing for the past.  I wonder what I should say, our history if we are unconscious, the self awareness that lives within each of us, that is the meaning of life. ...that is what the Suiko bell conveyed."

As I read my way through the exhibit, accompanied by several other equally persistent exhibit viewers, we found ourselves truly transformed by the experience of coming to know the thoughts of someone so profound through the association, the direct association, between object / artifact and the interpretation of that item in the author's own words.  

I can't recall ever having been so moved by an exhibit before.  I look forward to returning to the Miho Museum again next year to see what new treasured experience will lie in store for me then.

OCTOBER 31, 2000

Click on any of the report titles in the column 
at the left to continue.