The Samurai Exhibit at Asian Art Museum in San Francisco

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[Janet Rosen]

Katherine Derbyshire and I went to see it last night. I hadn't realized it is the family collection of the Hosokawa family, for whom Musashi had been sword instructor, so that much of his work has been in that family for centuries. There is no extant version of the Book of Five Rings in his own hand, but this has the best thing available: five scrolls transcribed by Terao Katsunobu contemporaneously and the earliest known copy. Each of the 5 scrolls is open for viewing. It totally knocked us out that they let them travel. Such a wonderful thing to see.
In San Francisco through Sept 20 (http://www.asianart.org/Samurai.htm)

[ninjaqutie]

My sensei has a flyer hanging up of this in our dojo. My husband and I were wondering if it would be worth going to since we live in southern oregon. What else do they have to see?

[Janet Rosen]

The permanent collection at the Asian is excellent. Note that if you can time your visit for Thursday after 5 pm, admission is only $10 and you have hours to enjoy the museum. There are also good shows up at the Modern if you wanted to make an art day out of it.

[Walker]

I just acquired the catalog the other day and was delighted to find the martial represented with the aesthetic. The Hosokawa were very important taste makers influencing Japanese aesthetics and via Art Nouveau Japonisme, modern aesthetics as well.

Seeing it in person would be a pleasure.