This November 2012 issue (No. 532) of Chiisana Tsubomi (小さな蕾) comes from the long-running Japanese publication devoted to antique art, ceramics, traditional crafts, museum collections, and connoisseurship. Richly illustrated and aimed at collectors and art enthusiasts, each issue offers an intimate look at important objects from Japanese and East Asian art history.
The main feature celebrates the reopening of the Gotoh Museum (五島美術館) and its commemorative exhibition 「時代の美」 (“Beauty Through the Ages”). This first instalment focuses on art from the Nara and Heian periods, presenting historic works connected with some of the formative centuries of Japanese Buddhist and court culture.
The beautiful cover reproduces an illustrated Buddhist manuscript or sutra, combining delicately painted figures and landscape elements with rows of elegant calligraphy—a striking example of the close relationship between religion, painting, and the written word in classical Japanese art.
The issue also includes 「土偶 DOGU に迫る II」, connected with the MIHO MUSEUM autumn exhibition 「土偶・コスモス」, exploring Japan’s enigmatic prehistoric Jōmon clay figurines (dogū) and their cultural significance.
Another feature examines Japanese ceramics of the Meiji and Taishō periods, making this issue particularly varied in scope, moving from ancient Buddhist art and prehistoric objects to the development of modern Japanese pottery.
