Scenes in and Around Kyoto (Rakuchu Rakugai-zu)

Join Emily Sano, Coates-Cowden-Brown Senior Advisor for Asian Art, Emerita, and Matthew P. McKelway, Takeo & Itsuko Atsumi Professor of Japanese Art History at Columbia University, as they take a closer look at the seventeenth-century Japanese screen from our permanent collection "Scenes in and Around Kyoto (Rakuchu Rakugai-zu)."
Japanese folding screens that show Kyoto spread out as a broad cityscape reveal a rich variety of activity, different economic and social roles, and shifts in political power as military shoguns took control of the country away from the imperial family. The primary activity on this screen is the Gion festival that occurs annually in July and features a spectacular parade of large, decorated floats pulled along the city streets to appease the gods and seek good health for the people.
Lively genre scenes of shopkeepers and craftsmen, outdoor picnics, wedding processions, theater, temples, shrines, and palaces show a city finally at peace at the end of a period of continuous civil war that had lasted nearly a hundred years.
Artist Unknown
Japanese, Edo Period (1603-1867)
"Scenes in and Around Kyoto (Rakuchu Rakugai-zu)," mid-17th century
Ink, pigments, and gold leaf on paper
Purchased with funds provided by the Lillie and Roy Cullen Endowment, 2001.51.a-b
Filming and Editing: Sage Duncan & David Medina