Exhibitions

In 1959, Sam and Betty Dubiner visited Japan for the first time. During that visit they became enchanted by the art and culture that they saw in museums and galleries, and they were chiefly attracted to the works of the artist-poet Yosa no Buson (1716-1784).

The cries of battle, the neighing horses on the battlefield, and the clanging of swords striking against each other have long faded away. But the sword is one of the three most sacred symbols of the Shinto belief, which is why it holds a special place in Japanese culture.

In ancient Japan, artists, poets and monks were accustomed to travelling about the countryside and recording their experiences in paintings and poems.

Pictures of birds and flowers - in Japanese kacho-e or kacho-ga - were particular favourites of the traditional Japanese artists. Kacho-e is one of the three pictorial motifs deriving from the Chinese classification system.

This exhibition is the second of its kind since the Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art reopened its doors to the public in 1995.

n 1603, after a long period of bloody civil wars, the Tokugawa dynasty came to power - the military regime of the shoguns - and ruled for more than 250 years.

Japanese tradition is rich in legends and folktales that are also represented in the plastic arts, forming a body of work indivisible from the culture of Japan. As in the rest of the world, the fables (densetsu) and folktales (mukashi-banashi: ancient stories) embody the moral values and way of life of the country.