Exhibitions

Fuji Seen Through the Mannen Bridge at Fukagawa

Hokusai "36 Views of Mt. Fuji"

Wikimedia Commons

As often happens in Spring, there are numerous special exhibitions at various art, science, and history museums, and for my interests this Spring brings a surfeit. Among the many choices, there are three shows closely related to pilgrimage topics. In Washington, DC a 'Japan Spring' is being celebrated, the centenary of the planting of the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin, and there are must see exhibits in two museums on the Mall for anyone who is a lover of things Japanese or with an interest in Japanese pilgrimages. At the Freer-Sackler there is a display of Hokusai's "36 Views of Mt. Fuji", original strikings of the famous colored woodblock pints of Mt. Fuji, itself a pre-eminent pilgrimage destination, and several of the scenes are along the Kansai pilgrimage route, the oldest and most popular in Japan visiting the 33 temples in the region southwest of Tokyo.

Hokusai's images of Mt. Fuji, including the great wave, probably the best known of all Japanese images, are often seen and reproduced. Not so the scrolls containing images of Japanese nature included in the National Gallery of Art's exhibit of bird and flower paintings by Itō Jakuchū.  These images, owned by the Japanese Imperial Household Agency, are rarely seen but are truly stunning. In a normal year they are on public view for a single day, and pilgrimages are organized to view them on that date. The National Gallery exhibit is only a month long and will close 29 April, so they are worth a rush visit.

The exhibit I would most like to see is at the British Museum in London, Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam. Alas, it is unlikely I will be in London between now and Sunday, and in any case all advance tickets are sold out. After reading a review of the exhibit in the most recent issue of the New York Review of Books, I almost booked a trip to London in order to see an extensive collection of materials on the world's largest pilgrimage. I shall have to be content reading the catalogue of the exhibit.