Forgetting Filial Piety

Forgetting Filial Piety

Torii Kiyonaga

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A rainy morning outside the licensed pleasure quarters further delays a disheveled young man who nonchalantly brushes his teeth while his companion and her maids look on with barely concealed impatience. The inscription, "Forget not your parents' love; respect the virtue of filial piety," is in satiric contrast to the scene, which in other circumstances might indeed reflect a family at its morning routine. Torii Kiyonaga, the last influential artist of the Torii school, painted graceful, stylish figures in the late eighteenth century.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.