Scattered and Gathered: Perspectives on the Tekagami-jō, a Japanese Calligraphy Album
Please join us for the opening of the Yale University Art Gallery’s new installation of “The Tekagami-jō: A Japanese Calligraphy Album in Context.” This opening event is sponsored by the Council of East Asian Studies and is open to the general public.
In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Japan, collectors of calligraphy attributed to historical figures created a demand for albums composed of text fragments extracted from older scrolls or books. Called tekagami, these albums were prized as archives of calligraphic excellence and histories of Japanese writing. One of the finest extant examples of these albums is the Tekagamijō, assembled around 1670. This installation places it in the context of a cultural practice of fragmentation and re-assembly and in its time and place.