Mihata Jôryû, Bijin with Carp Kimono, Edo period, Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk, Lee Center permanent Collection.   Click here for larger image.

Select paintings from the Lee Center permanent collection, dating from the 17th to the 20th centuries, will be exhibited with Japanese textiles on special loan from private collections exploring the theme of iconography and symbolism in Japanese dress.

The 18th century saw an explosion of different techniques used to create and embellish textiles, providing the Japanese people with a wide variety of fabric choices for their dress and ornament, ranging from rich embroidery to simple resist-dyed patterns. The importance of visual symbols throughout East Asia has been, and is still today, far greater than in the West. Seen on a fashionable man or woman's robe, certain animals, both real and fantastic, have ideological meanings; flora and fauna may be synonymous with the changing seasons, and decorative patterns can suggest the great classics of Japanese literature.

In Japan during the 17th and 18th centuries, there were strict regulations, based on class, which governed what people were permitted to wear. This exhibition, which includes screens, hanging scrolls, albums and textiles, dating from the 17th through 20th centuries, examines not only the social class and profession of the wearer based on type of textile worn, but also the inherent symbolic readings of the pattern.

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