Exhibition ‘Taoism Art’ Opened

On July 11, the exhibition titled ‘Shirazaru tao no sekai – Dōkyō no bijutsu (Taoism Art)’ opened at the Mitsui Memorial Museum (until September 6). Featuring a total of 410 works of sculpture, calligraphy, painting and crafts from China and Japan dating the second century BC to the present day, the exhibition illustrated how Taoism was deeply rooted in the cultures of East Asia. It consisted of twelve chapters: ‘Chūgoku kodai no shisen shisō (Ancient Chinese Immortal Thought)’; ‘Rōshi to dōkyō no seiritsu (Laozi and the Origins of Taoism)’; ‘Dōkyō no shinkō to sonzō (Taoist Beliefs and Deity Images)’; ‘Onmyōdō (The Way of Yin and Yang)’; ‘Jigoku to meikai, jūō shisō (Hell and the underworld, the Ten Kings)’; ‘Hokuto shichisei to seishuku shinkō (The Big Dipper and Belief in the Constellations)’; ‘Zenshū to dōkyō (Zen Buddhism and Taoism)’; ‘Sennin, dōkyō no Kamigumi to minkan shinkō (Immortals, Taoist Deities and Folk Beliefs)’; ‘Dōkyō shisō no hirogari (The Spread of Taoist Thought)’; ‘Kindai nihon to dōkyō (Modern Japan and Taoism)’; and ‘Kakusan sure dōkyō no imēji (The Diffusion of Taoist Imagery)’. This was a major exhibition showcasing the history of Taoism, which traced its origin to Laozi and had developed through its integration with philosophy of immortality, feng shui, constellations, divination and Buddhism. The exhibition subsequently toured to the Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts (September 15 – October 25) and the Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture (January 23 – March 22, 2010). (Japanese)