The State Hermitage Museum: Hermitage News

New Permanent Exhibition of Japanese Art in the State Hermitage Museum

30 June 2009, a permanent exhibition Culture and Art of Japan (Rooms N 358, 375, 376) was opened in the Hermitage after one quarter of a century break.

The new exhibition surpasses the previous one in area and embraced range of problems and is supplemented with the most interesting exhibits that have been purchased during the last twenty five years as well as with a number of monuments that were kept in the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin till 1945.

By virtue of certain circumstances the work on new exhibition that will occupy four rooms in its full scale is divided into two stages. The opening part of the exhibition covers the period from the end of the 13th century till the middle of the 19th century; the second part includes the period from 1868 till the end of 1920s. Its opening is planned for 2011 - 2012.

The present exhibition presents 450 monuments (most of them are exhibited for the first time) overwhelming majority of which date back to the epoch of Tokugawa (1601-1868) and reflect various spheres of traditional Japanese culture. Scrolls on silk and paper with religious and secular subjects, six-fold painted screens, polychromatic engraving ‘ukiyo-e’ are closely connected with the development of urban culture of 18th - 19th centuries, characterize Japanese painting of various movements.

Such original and the most complicated phenomenon of Japanese culture as theatre has been marked out into independent topic for the first time. Various masks, costumes, stand for scroll are among the exhibits.

Full armour, sabres and swords, various awards, staff weapons, bows with arrows are exhibited for the first time providing possibility to speak seriously of samurai, unique social and cultural phenomenon of Japanese culture and also of gunsmith art that is closely connected to it.

Also, for the first time one more peculiar phenomenon of Japanese art - tea ceremony - is presented on the basis of the material of the Hermitage collection. The objects designated for it are presented in a separate display-case.

The department that introduces various spheres of applied art was expanded significantly. Great attention is paid to netsuke. The Hermitage collection of that miniature sculpture reflects special features of all the main schools and includes works of the biggest engravers of the 16th - 19th centuries that worked with various materials. Here one can see articles from lacquer, wood, ivory and metal (boxes, combs, fans and others), works of ceramic workshops.

Multimedia kiosk with programmes that tell about culture and art of Japan and the most interesting exhibits presented at the exhibition is installed there.

Bowl bearing a depiction of maple leaves 18th century Full size image		Bowl with a depiction of an ibis 17th century Full size image

Mizushashi (water vessel) 18th century Full size image		The Shakyamuni Budda with the Bodhisattvas Fugen and Monju and his retunue 14th century Full size image

Bodhisattva Kokudzo Late 13th - early 14th century Full size image		Maru-do-yoroi, hibrid armour Late 18th - early 19th century Full size image

Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage, at the opening ceremony

Ichiro Kavabato, Consul General of Japan in St Petersburg

Olga Deshpande, the head of the Far East Sector of Oriental Department of the State Hermitage, Ichiro Kavabato, Consul General of Japan in St Petersburg, and Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the State Hermitage, at the opening ceremony

At the exhibition

Kiriginu (Noh theatre costume)
First half of the 19th century
Full size image