Helena Honcoopová, curator of the Landscapes, Birds and Flowers exhibition, selected 150 prints, books and paintings from the gallery’s rich collections. As classical landscape ink painting in East Asia will be the theme of a separate exhibition to be held in 2007 (Markéta Hánová, the event’s curator), the present showing is devoted to colour sceneries created by artists of Japan’s popular schools of painting. Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiroshige, Shigenobu and Eizen were noted landscape painters, while Kono Bairei, Taki Katei, Watanabe Seitei, Takeuchi Seiho, Ohara Koson and other masters of the Meiji period were famed for their flowers, birds, animals and fishes, already inspired by European realism. The selection comprises works by Ogata Korin and Sakai Hoitsu – masters of the Rimpa decorative school, and the famed ryakuga rough sketches produced by Keisai Masayoshi, Hokusai and Hiroshige, and others. Also on view are hanging coloured scrolls on paper and silk with naturalistic depictions of animals and fishes. This spring exhibition, held at the Zbraslav Chateau, is a celebration of Nature as interpreted in the works of Japanese masters of the colour woodblock print.
