A sense of perfection Saluting the rule of three

The arts of Japanese poetry, calligraphy and painting are celebrated in an immersive New York exhibition that explores different moods and eras

By Veronica Esposito

Japanese art has a notably complicated relationship with perfection. The cultural notion of wabi-sabi, for instance, embraces imperfection in art, arguing that it is preferable, and more beautiful, for art to have cracks and other such signs of its existence in the world. Curious then, that the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s major new exhibition on more than 1,000 years of Japanese art is titled The Three Perfections. Referring to the arts of poetry, calligraphy and painting – which have at times been called by this name in east Asian cultures – this show celebrates artworks that unite these three distinctive forms of expression. The Three Perfections builds on the New York museum’s history of showing major exhibitions of Japanese art. In 2015 the museum hosted the blockbuster show Discovering Japanese Art, which…

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Guardian Weekly (Digital) - 1 Issue, 23 August 2024

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