Painting and Poetry. Men and Gods in Modern Japanese Art

MUSEC presents the exhibition Painting and Poetry.

MUSEC presents the exhibition Painting and Poetry: Men and Gods in Modern Japanese Art, a journey dedicated to Japanese visual culture between the 15th and 20th centuries, in which art, literature, philosophy and spirituality intertwine.

The exhibition, curated by Moira Luraschi, is built around two important collections presented to the public for the first time: sixty-two vertical scrolls (kakemono), created between the 15th and 20th centuries and donated by Claudio Perino, and six monumental painted screens from the Edo period (1603–1868), belonging to Maria Francesca Di Milia's collection of East Asian art. These works were created for domestic and ritual contexts and are now recognised as precious art objects.

Through a rich variety of styles, techniques and subjects, the exhibition highlights the centrality of the human figure – men and women, deities, heroes, spirits and literary characters – alongside landscapes, symbolic natures and scenes of everyday life. The exhibition emphasises the dialogue between painting, poetry and calligraphy, the so-called “three perfections” of East Asian artistic tradition.

Organised into thematic sections, the exhibition devotes ample space to painted screens, bijinga (images of beautiful women), seasonal landscapes, deities and folklore figures, and representations of urban life linked to the ukiyo-e tradition.