National Palace Museum Special Exhibition: Japan’s Court Culture
Creatrip Team
2 months ago
The National Palace Museum in Seoul opened a special exhibition titled “A Thousand Years Flowing: Japan’s Court Culture,” featuring 39 court artifacts on loan from the Tokyo National Museum, shown in Korea for the first time. Highlights include a layered Heian-period female court robe called the junihitoe (十二単), long folding screens displayed behind the emperor’s throne, instruments for gagaku (雅樂) court music and bugaku (舞樂) court dance, and other paintings and crafts. Curators say Japan’s court culture took shape after adopting Tang China’s political models in the 8th century, flourished in the Heian era (8th–12th centuries), waned politically under the Kamakura shogunate but survived through rituals and records, and was revived from the 17th–19th centuries into the present. The exhibition runs through February.
