print
- Museum number
- 1989,0203,0.7
- Title
- Object: Yakushiji hana eshiki (Yakushiji Flower Ceremony)
- Description
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Colour woodblock print. Flower ceremony at the Yakushiji Buddhist temple: the Great Buddha with mandorla in centre; small Buddhas in background, and lidded jar and flowers in foreground. Inscribed, signed, sealed and marked.
- Production date
- 1985
- Dimensions
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Height: 37 centimetres
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Width: 35.90 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Smith 1994
The Yakushiji is one of the most venerable Buddhist temples in Japan, situated in the Nishinokyo district outside Nara, which was Japan's capital in the years AD 710-84. It is the national headquarters of the now small but then influential Hosso School of Buddhism. Its 'Kondo' (Main Hall), originally eighth century but rebuilt, houses the great bronze triad of Yakushi, the Buddha associated with healing, flanked by images of the Bodhisattvas Nikko and Gekko associated with the sun and moon. These images are late seventh to eighth century in date and one of Japan's most famous and revered religious sculptural groups. It is the main image (over two metres tall) that Kida shows with banks of artificial flowers presented at the annual flower ceremony from 30 March to 5 April. The print is one of a large series (1989,0203,0.1-15) in varying formats on festivals all over Japan which the artist treats in an affectionate, sometimes gently ironic, folk style. His own contributions to this style are a sense of energy and movement, and a tendency to visually dramatic close-ups, as in this example.
The flower ceremony was inaugurated by the Emperor Horikawa in AD 1107 after the Empress's recovery from illness following prayers to Yakushi at the temple. He ordered the court ladies to make artificial flowers (it then being winter) and presented twelve vases of them to the Yakushiji, which subsequently repeated the event annually by making its own flowers. Ten types of flower are now presented, made of paper rather than the silk which was first used.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
2019 October - 2020 April, BM Mitsubishi Corporation Japanese Galleries
- Associated events
- Associated Event: Yakushiji Flower Ceremony
- Acquisition date
- 1989
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1989,0203,0.7