The Samurai exhibition is the first to examine how the warrior class had its image & myth created over time. It aims to challenge what people think they know about these Japanese figures. The exhibition brings together more than 280 objects and digital media from the museum’s collection & 29 other lenders from around the world. Many items are being shown for the first time including a suit of samurai armour. The display features weapons & armour alongside paintings and woodblock prints as well as books and clothing plus ceramics and photographs. The samurai appeared in the early medieval period from the 1100s to 1600s when wealthy households hired warriors for private security.
This mercenary group evolved into a rural gentry & by 1615 they had left the battlefield behind to work as government officials & scholars and patrons of the arts. During this period half of the samurai class were women. Although they did not fight they played a vital role in the elite order. The exhibition also shows how samurais influenced popular culture with a section dedicated to film & television as well as manga and video games and contemporary art. This includes commissioned works by the celebrated Japanese artist Noguchi Tetsuya. Dr Rosina Buckland is the Asahi Shimbun curator of Japanese Collections. She told The Independent that historians have always known the popular understanding of most cultures differs from how they are actually interpreted.
She explained that distance in time and space creates a popular understanding that can be easily consumed. Simple descriptions spread more easily. Hollywood movies and imagery get spread around the world and become fixed in people’s minds. Historians know that digging beneath the surface reveals something quite different. There is a small grain of truth that gets exaggerated. The exhibition is split into three sections. It explores the samurai’s role as fearsome warriors bound by honour. It shows their evolution into a cultural class of bureaucrats. It examines their modern influence on popular culture. After the samurai stopped fighting in 1615 a rich cultural landscape emerged according to Dr Buckland. She says they were not warriors in practice during this period.
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They were warriors in name only. They were a standing army that never actually had to fight a battle because there were 250 years of peace. The exhibition shows samurai in normal everyday clothing like a business suit. It shows that women made up half of the samurai class. There is a woman’s robe on display along with her daily hair care instruments and a dressing set and hand mirror and a book of etiquette. There are many cultural pursuits shown in this section including books that samurai published and artworks they enjoyed. The exhibition reveals that much of the mythology around the group was shaped by politics and nostalgia and global pop culture long after their age had ended. During peacetime & particularly during the early 20th century Japan was engaged in colonial expansion.
Dr Buckland says the samurai image was manipulated to create a national identity. Highlights of the exhibition include a rare suit of samurai armour newly acquired by the museum. It comes complete with a prestigious helmet & golden standard shaped like iris leaves. These were designed to make the wearer both identifiable and fearsome. Other items include a vermillion red firefighting jacket worn by women and a rare portrait of a 13-year-old samurai who led an embassy to the Vatican in 1582. Modern installations include a Louis Vuitton outfit inspired by Japanese armour & references to popular video games such as Assassin’s Creed: Shadows and Nioh 3.
Dr Buckland says they are using the well-known word samurai to introduce people to the richness of Japanese culture & the complexity of history. The exhibition explains the different roles they had over the centuries. Because they were the elite they had the best quality objects. This allows the exhibition to examine the popular understanding of samurai culture.
