Exhibition ‘HASEGAWA TOHAKU’ Opened

On February 23, the exhibition ‘HASEGAWA TOHAKU: 400^th Memorial Retrospective’ opened at the Tokyo National Museum to commemorate the 400^th anniversary of the passing of HASEGAWA Tōhaku (1539 – 1610), a master painter of the Momoyama period (until March 22). Featuring approximately 80 works including National Treasures such as ‘Maple Tree’ (Chishakuin temple) and ‘Pine Trees’ (Tokyo National Museum), the exhibition traced the artistic career of HASEGAWA Tōhaku from his early years painting Buddhist art in Noto through his rise in Kyoto where, backed by TOYOTOMI Hideyoshi and SEN no Rikyū, he produced numerous large-scale golden paintings, called konpekiga, while simultaneously deepening his mastery of ink painting, suibokuga. It consisted of seven chapters: Chapter 1 ‘Hasegawa Nobuharu: Buddhist Painter of Noto Peninsula’; Chapter 2 ‘The Turning Point: The Move to Kyoto and the Emergence of Tohaku’; Chapter 3 ‘Portraiture: Tohaku’s Contemporaries’; Chapter 4 ‘Momoyama Masterpieces: The World of Colorful Screens on Gold Ground’; Chapter 5 ‘A Testament to Faith: Tohaku and Honpoji Temple’; Chapter 6 ‘Master of Ink: The Devotion to Ink Paintings’; and Chapter 7 ‘The Realm of Pine Trees’. The exhibition subsequently toured to the Kyoto National Museum (April 10 – May 9). (Japanese)