Japanese Gallery (Honkan) Room 19
April 5, 2022 (Tue) - September 10, 2023 (Sun)
In collaborating with interns from the Graduate School of the Tokyo University of the Arts, the Tokyo National Museum is reproducing artworks to study and reveal the process behind their creation. This year's project features a garment from Okinawa, made by using the traditional bingata dyeing technique. With a mass of colorful peony flowers, buds, and leaves, all dyed on a white background, the original work is entitled: Bingata Garment with Peonies. The intricate design structure and vivid colors gave our team ample opportunity to explore this superb dyeing technique that blossomed in the 19th-century Ryūkyū Kingdom in Okinawa. What kind of dyeing techniques allow such minutely-detailed flower petals and leaf shapes, and what kind of culture nurtured the colorful style of bingata? This display explores answers to these questions through a combination of research, fieldwork, and hands-on reproduction.
Before starting production, the team conducted research at the Shiroma bingata Studio, run by one of the leading families that has continued production from the time Okinawa was still known as the Ryūkyū Kingdom. We received much invaluable advice from them concerning the traditional techniques. Today, however, it is difficult to obtain traditional materials for coloring and it was decided after close observation of the original work to take up the challenge of a modern-day reproduction by using materials still available today.
We hope that, by following each production process, this display allows you to appreciate the beauty of this traditional expertise.
2016-2017 Internship Research Group, Graduate School of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts
Textile Production: Yamada Asao, Okoda Mayuko
Design: Uchiyama Yoichirō
Project Management: Tamai Aya, Tsukimura Kino
