The Plains of Musashi

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A full moon, once silver but now blackened by age, appears on an unobstructed horizon between a background of golden clouds and a foreground frieze of grasses and autumnal wildflowers: yellow maidenflower, blue and white Chinese bellflower, purple agrimony, and wild chrysanthemum. A queue of descending geese (perhaps a later addition) at upper right conveys the vastness of the grassy plain. These pictorial motifs are associated with the once-wild plain of Musashi, now a densely populated area of North Tokyo. Since the tenth century, Musashi has usually been associated with autumn. The tradition underlying this image began in a poem by Minamoto no Michikata (1189–1238): Musashino wa tsuki no irubeki mine mo nashi obana ga sue ni kakaru shirakumo The plains of Musashi have no mountain peaks into which the moon can slip, as white clouds enshroud spears of plume grasses. —Trans. John T. Carpenter

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art