May is a particularly lovely season in Japan. After the cherry blossoms, peonies and wisteria come into their own. Our friends at Hasedera temple (known as the peony 牡丹 temple) have been posting about how wonderful it is there at the moment. Introduced from China during the 8th century (shortly after Hasedera was founded), peonies in Japan symbolise wealth, honour and nobility. In this country which champions the euphemism, the peony gave its name to one of my favourite culinary treats (admittedly more of an autumn/winter variety), the botan-nabe, with thin circles of wild boar meat arranged as peony petals, a meibutsu of Tamba-Sasayama in Hyogo, where I learned so much about Japan while on the precursor to the popular JET (Japanese English Teacher) programme. Highlights from April include Dr Meri Arichi’s delightful lecture on Tōdaiji (the Great Eastern Temple) and its Shōsōin Imperial Treasury (many thanks to Dr Monika Hinkel for her excellent report on this) and, on the same day, our first hanami party in the Cathedral Close.
We are currently working up plans for further engagement with Hasedera, as part of a spin-off from our Nara to Norwich project. In pursuit of ‘archaeologies of religious experience’ we will be taking on a comparative investigation of pilgrimage routes in Japan and the UK. Norwich to Walsingham in north Norfolk was second only to the route to Canterbury, immortalised by Chaucer. Now home to no less than three different denominations of shrine, Walsingham is worth a visit at any time of year. And in Japan, Hasedera marks the start of the ancient route from Asuka to the Ise Grand Shrine, the major Shinto centre where none less than the Sun Goddess herself, Amaterasu, is enshrined. We will be bringing further reports on this as the project develops.
I was fortunate to be invited to the recent opening of the outstanding ‘Hiroshige: artist of the Open Road’ exhibition at the British Museum, curated by the gifted Alfred Haft. Alfred will be giving our July Third Thursday Lecture on this topic. The beautifully-designed show includes many stunning prints, including from his famous series on Views of the Tokaido, and I particularly enjoyed some of his lesser known works, including Scenes from Kyoto. A coda section which concludes the exhibition shows Hiroshige’s lasting legacy on modern art.
We look forward to our May Third Thursday lecture by our Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow, Dr Pauline Ota, who will also be giving the annual Sainsbury Lecture in Japanese Art as part of the East Asian Studies Research Seminar at the University of Cambridge on 12th. I am off to Okayama to take part in a conference in conjunction with Professor Naoko Matsumoto’s new Materia Mind project.
Professor Simon Kaner
Executive Director