Nijo-jo Castle Painting Gallery: Spring Exhibition in 2024 "Age of Nijo-rikyu Imperial Villa"Series

Ohiroma of Nijo-rikyu Imperial Villa —Ichi-no-ma (First Room) of the Ohiroma—
The original murals of the Ninomaru-goten Palace at Nijo-jo castle were created by Kano-school artists during major renovation of the castle in 1626, inpreparation for a visit by Emperor Gomizunoo (1596–1680). This year's exhibitions,entitled "Age of Nijo-rikyu Imperial Villa"Series,focus on the ImperialVilla period of Nijo-jo castle and introduce the roles and situations around the murals of Ninomaru-goten Palace at the time.
Nijo-jo Castle was built in 1603 by order of Tokugawa Ieyasu as a placeand styles of the murals there were also designed especially to serve thefor the shogun to stay and hold rituals and other events while in Kyoto.

purpose of the building.

Later, in preparation for a visit from Emperor Gomizunoo in 1626, theThe murals in the First and Second Rooms were painted by Kano Tan’yu.

Ninomaru-goten Palace and other castle buildings underwent major repairs.

On all sides of the continuous space of the two rooms are murals of pine

After the Meiji Restoration, the castle was subject to many changes,
including being placed under the control of the Dajokandai (Office of theGreat Council of State) and the Kyoto Prefectural Government, before it
became a villa for the imperial family and was renamed “Nijo-rikyu” in1884. In 1939, the responsibility for managing Nijo-rikyu imperial Villa
was transferred to the Kyoto City municipality, which has since been
managing the villa until today.

trees, which are thought to have been intended to embody the TokugawaShogunate’s wishes for eternal prosperity. Golden pheasants, another motifof the murals, were so rare in Edo-period Japan that they were sometimes

offered as gifts to those in power. The entire image of multiple huge pinetrees is contained in the surface covered with a ground of gold leaf without
any depictions of their roots on the ground or any other motifs, such as
golden clouds, hiding the trees. Therefore, the forms of the pine trees

Ninomaru-goten Palace during the age of Nijo-rikyu imperial Villa

clearly stand out. In the large alcove behind the shogun, a curved pine tree

Around the end of the Edo period, Nijo-jo Castle saw a period of

is depicted to look like an umbrella over the head of the shogun, sitting on

turbulence, serving as a place for Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the last Tokugawa

the upper floor, while on the eastern and western sides, between which theshogun, to declare his intention to return political power to the Emperor.

alcove is, are pine branches and leaves inclining toward the shogun. This

Ninomaru-goten Palace in particular also played a variety of roles aftercomposition strongly impressed the viewer with the majesty of the shogun

the Meiji Restoration. After Nijo-jo Castle became Nijo-rikyu Villa, theseated in the center.

Ministry of the Imperial Household carried out repairs to Ninomaru-goten
Palace, which were completed in 1886. The repairs included laying carpets
to make the building look suitable for an imperial villa. From 1897, the oldmurals in corridors and other areas were replaced with new ones.
From 1893 to 1894, the Katsuranomiya-goten Palace, the palace of theKatsuranomiya family located to the north of the Kyoto Imperial Palace,
was relocated to the then vacant Honmaru area and bacame Honmarugoten Palace, resulting in Nijo-rikyu as a imperial villa with two buildings:
Honmaru-goten Palace and Ninomaru-goten Palace.
Honmaru-goten Palace was used as an accommodation facility for theimperial family, and Crown Prince Yoshihito (later Emperor Taisho)
and Crown Prince Hirohito (later Emperor Showa) often stayed there.
Meanwhile, Ninomaru-goten Palace was not only visited by the crownprinces during their stays in Kyoto but was also sometimes used as aplace for them to meet important people in Kyoto or as a resting placefor distinguished guests from abroad. For the enthronement ceremony ofEmperor Taisho in 1915, a banquet hall was set up in the current Seiryuen
area.
When a crown prince visited Nijo-rikyu imperial Villa, hundreds ofordinary people sometimes gathered in front of the Higashi-otemon Gate tocatch a glimpse of him.

Murals of the Ohiroma

Meiji-era repairs to the murals and the Ohiroma
After Nijo-jo Castle turned into Nijo-rikyu Villa, Ninomaru-goten Palacebecame a place for the imperial family and foreign dignitaries. Many ofthe murals there, mainly severely damaged ones along the corridors wererepainted and replaced from around 1897. This project was supervised
by Yamataka Nobuakira of the Kyoto Imperial Museum, who oversaw
the decoration of Meiji-kyuden Palace in 1884, with then active painters
repainting those murals while referring to the designs of treasures housed in
the Shosoin Repository.
In 1900, the ceiling paintings of the corridor in the Ohiroma wererepainted. Although the 250 ceiling paintings were initially planned tobe repainted and installed on the coffered ceiling of the corridor, Crown
Prince Yoshihito visited the building when only 120 of the 250 ceiling
paintings had been completed. However, according to the Hinode Shimbun
newspaper, the predecessor of the current Kyoto Shimbun, the prince saw
those paintings and said, “They look beautiful and elegant.”
Around the same time, the murals above the nageshi along the corridor in
the Ohiroma were also repainted to depict clouds and haze with three kindsof metal leaf powders with metal leaf strips of various sizes and formsplaced inside the clouds, as well as a wave pattern created with moriage
gofun.

During the Edo period (1603–1867), Nijo-jo Castle was a castle of theThis project to renew the murals along the corridor, which was

Tokugawa shogunate, and the Ohiroma building there, the most formal

implemented after the premises became an imperial villa, resulted in theplace designed to display the shogun’s power, served as a place for official

coexistence of murals dating back to 1626 and murals created in the Meiji

meetings between the Tokugawa shogun and visitors. For this purpose,era in Ninomaru-goten Palace. The Ohiroma and its corridor thus became

various special details were added to the Ohiroma. One example is thea place where visitors could feel a kind of fusion of old and new, thedouble height coffered ceiling of the Ichi-no-ma (First Room) and its
floor being raised approximately 20 centimeters higher than the Ni-noma (Second Room). In addition to the architectural features, the motifs

new breath of the Meiji era as they walked through the corridor and theatmosphere of the Edo period when entering the Ohiroma.
Junko Furiya (Assistant Curator, Nijo-jo Castle)