Art News

The Sackler Gallery Premieres Visionary Works by Japanese Master Painter

artwork: Kano Kazunobu - "Birds and Beasts, Five Hundred Arhats" Scrolls 61 & 62" - Hanging Scrolls - Ink and color on silk - Collection Zojoji, Tokyo. On view at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery,Washinton DC in "Masters of Mercy: Buddha's Amazing Disciples" from March 10th until July 8th.


Washington, DC.- The Sackler Gallery is proud to present Kazunobu’s epic series presenting the legendary lives and deeds of the Buddha’s 500 disciples. “Masters of Mercy: Buddha’s Amazing Disciples” will be on view at the gallery from March 10th through July 8th, and form’s part of the “Japan Spring” season, two major Japanese exhibitions of artists whose works reflect the vitality and interests of nineteenth-century Edo (now Tokyo) at the Sackler, coinciding with the National Cherry Blossom Festival and centennial celebration of Tokyo’s gift of cherry trees to Washington. In early 1854, just as American Commodore Matthew Perry’s ships steamed into Edo Bay to persuade Japan to open its ports to the world, the esteemed painter Kano Kazunobu (1816-63) received a commission from a highly respected Buddhist temple located in the heart of Edo, now modern-day Tokyo. His mission was to create 100 paintings on a wildly popular theme of the day–the lives and deeds of the Buddha’s 500 disciples, known in Japan as rakan.