John T. Carpenter, Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, gives an overview of the themes covered in the recently published book The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting, co-authored with Tim T. Zhang, research associate in the Department of Asian Art. This volume and the exhibition it accompanies—co-curated with Mr. Zhang and Monika Bincsik, Diane and Arthur Abbey Curator of Japanese Decorative Arts—serve to commemorate the extraordinary gift of more than 300 Japanese paintings and calligraphies to The Met from Seattle-based collectors Mary and Cheney Cowles.
The five primary areas addressed in the book include: kana calligraphy of the 11th to 14th centuries; bokuseki, or Zen monks’ calligraphies of medieval times; courtly styles of calligraphy and paintings of the early modern period; Ōbaku Zen calligraphy of the 17th century; and literati painting of the 18th and 19th centuries. By way of background, please see the in-depth interview with Cheney Cowles published in Impressions 41 (2020), “Cheney Cowles: A Seattle Collector Makes a Statement.”