On 25 December 2020, an exhibition of works of Japanese art from the collection of the State Hermitage opened at the Hermitage–Vyborg centre.
The formal ceremony began with video greetings from Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage: “I am grateful to the administration and staff in Vyborg and the staff of the Hermitage who prepared, made and realized this splendid exhibition. It is very important today when we are contriving in the interval between different waves of the coronavirus to change our exhibitions in the Hermitage centres, something that shows how resilient our whole system is.”
In his welcome, Alexander Kostenko, Director of the Hermitage–Vyborg exhibition centre also noted that the museum staff had exerted themselves to the utmost to bring about the unscheduled exhibition. The event will be a New Year’s present to the people of Vyborg and guests in the city.
The participants in the ceremony included representatives of the Leningrad Region culture committee, the deputies and the Vyborg district administration, the exhibition curator, Hermitage researchers and restorers.
Some 300 works of fine and applied art created between the 17th century and the first half of the 19th have been selected for the display.
The basis for the exhibition is provided by ukiyo-e prints (“pictures of the floating world”). In the early Middle Ages, the term ukiyo had a religious connotation, and the expression “floating world” referred to the “transitory existence” to which, according to Buddhist teachings, people have a mental attachment that prevents them from attaining enlightenment. By the 17th century, the meaning of the term had changed, becoming more superficial and referring simply to a “shifting world” filled with fast-changing events. In literature, the new philosophy was reflected in popular ukiyo-zōshi stories about love and adultery, or the ups and downs of merchant life. In the fine arts, a new style took shape that spanned both painting on scrolls and ukiyo-e prints and took as its subject matter the merry, eventful lives of city dwellers.
Because graphic art can only be exposed to light for a maximum of two months, the prints will be completely replaced at the end of February 2021: a second set of more than 80 works has been prepared for this rotation. The organizers recommend that people should not restrict themselves to a single visit and should plan to come to the exhibition again after the display is refreshed.
The works of applied art in the exhibition include armour, swords and elements of sword mounts, clocks, writing accoutrements, utensils for picnics and feasts, articles used in tea ceremonies, Noh and Kyōgen theatrical masks, miniature netsuke counterweight sculptures, lacquer combs and hairpins for women’s coiffures. A close examination of the prints will reveal similar items in those pictures.
The curator of the exhibition is Anna Savelyeva, head of the Oriental Department and keeper of the Japanese art collection. An illustrated catalogue with the same title (Zertsalo Vostoka) has been prepared for the exhibition. Its authors are researchers from the State Hermitage’s Oriental and “Arsenal” Departments: Anna Savelyeva, Tatiana Arapova, Alexei Bogoliubov and Vsevolod Obraztsov.
The exhibition “A Mirror of the East. Japanese Art of the Edo Period (1603–1868) from the collection of the State Hermitage” will run from 26 December 2020 until 15 April 2021.
