Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we haven’t been able to welcome visitors to our special exhibition Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection since last March. But a partnership with the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University has inspired new ways of thinking about intersections between art and the natural world.

This spring, we are excited to offer even more ways to experience the Painting Edo exhibition and explore the landscape of the Arnold Arboretum!

Though the Harvard Art Museums remain closed for now, the Arnold Arboretum—Harvard’s remarkable “museum of trees”—is open to everyone, every day from sunrise to sunset, free of charge.

Planting Edo: A Field Guide

This guide pairs key plants from the Painting Edo exhibition with their counterparts from the living collections at the Arnold Arboretum. Use the guide at the Arnold Arboretum or while virtually exploring the Painting Edo exhibition to learn more about the botanical features and poetic significance of various plants.

Share your explorations with us on social media using #PlantingEdo. We will repost our favorite discoveries each week! You can download Planting Edo: A Field Guide today, free of charge.

Haiku and You: Painting Edo and the Arnold Arboretum

This spring, we invite you to become part of a community of writers, sharing the spirit of haiku and experiencing the restorative power of art and nature.

In the months ahead, we will host virtual workshops and share prompts, plants, poetry, and paintings on social media, encouraging you to find inspiration for your own haiku practice in the landscape of the Arnold Arboretum and the Painting Edo exhibition.

You’ll also have the chance to become a published poet by submitting your haiku to our online gallery or tagging us on social media using #HaikuAndYou.

Painting Edo at the Arnold Arboretum

With the convenience of Zoom, the distance between painted plants in the galleries and their living counterparts at the Arnold Arboretum melted away, enabling curious viewers to look simultaneously at living and painted plants with curator Rachel Saunders and the Arnold Arboretum’s Michael Dosmann, Ned Friedman, and Steve Schneider.

Through this series of videos, observe works from the Painting Edo exhibition through the eyes of a botanist and an art historian and notice the botanical precision and poetic depth with which artists of Japan’s Edo period (1615–1868) captured the natural world.

• Discover Magnolia sieboldii and Japanese black pine with Ned Friedman, Director of the Arnold Arboretum, and Rachel Saunders, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Curator of Asian Art at the Harvard Art Museums.
• Take a close look at hydrangeas with Rachel Saunders and Michael Dosmann, Keeper of Living Collections at the Arnold Arboretum.
• Explore the Arnold Arboretum’s Bonsai & Penjing Collection with Steve Schneider, Director of Operations and Public Programs, and Rachel Saunders.
• Learn more about Japanese black pine in this article by curator Rachel Saunders in Arnoldia magazine.

Special thanks to Pam Thompson, Manager of Adult Education at the Arnold Arboretum, and Molly Ryan, Programs Manager at the Harvard Art Museums.

These offerings are just a few of the ways to explore and experience the landmark Painting Edo exhibition. Visit our exhibition page for more ways to engage this spring!

Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection was made possible by the Robert H. Ellsworth Bequest to the Harvard Art Museums, the Melvin R. Seiden and Janine Luke Fund for Publications and Exhibitions, the Catalogues and Exhibitions Fund for Pre-Twentieth-Century Art of the Fogg Museum, the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, the Thierry Porté Director’s Discretionary Fund for Japanese Art, and the Japan Foundation. The accompanying print catalogues were supported by the Harvard Art Museums Mellon Publication Funds, including the Henry P. McIlhenny Fund.

Related programming is supported by the M. Victor Leventritt Lecture Series Endowment Fund, Harvard University’s Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, and the Department of History of Art and Architecture Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund for Art and Architecture.

An illustrated publication accompanies the exhibition. Painting Edo: Selections from the Feinberg Collection of Japanese Art is a sweeping and lavishly illustrated overview of a transformative era in Japanese art-making as told through highlights from the finest private collection of Edo period painting in the United States. 

Robert and Betsy Feinberg have generously promised their collection of over three hundred works of Japanese art to the Harvard Art Museums. Judiciously assembled over more than four decades, the collection offers an exceptional opportunity to explore continuities and disruptions in artistic practice in early modern Japan. The stewardship of the collection by the museums ensures access by students, faculty, scholars, and the public, and allows for teaching, research, and further documentation of these important works. A complete catalogue of the Feinberg Collection is now available.

Share your experience:
#PaintingEdo
#PlantingEdo
#HaikuAndYou