In October 2015, the Kyushu National Museum will hold its 41st special exhibition, once again titled "Japan, the Land of Beauty," to commemorate its tenth anniversary.
Ancient Japanese people admired and selectively adopted advanced foreign cultures and new artifacts. They were skilled at cleverly fusing these new elements with existing ones to create a new "Japanese beauty."
The 10th Anniversary Special Exhibition "Japan, the Land of Beauty" is an attempt to symbolically capture the formation of Japanese aesthetics from the perspective of cultural exchange with East Asia. It does this by showcasing national treasures of Japanese art from the Jomon to the Kamakura periods. Furthermore, instead of only focusing on the aesthetics nurtured in the ancient capitals of Nara and Kyoto, the exhibition will also feature various forms of beauty cultivated in the Ryukyu Islands to the south and Ezochi (Hokkaido) to the north, offering a more multifaceted view of "Japan, the Land of Beauty."
