Omote-Shoin, the Drawing Room 三宝院 表書院

Official explanation

The stately Drawing Room of Sanbō-in, known as Omote-Shoin, consists of three rooms, the lowest of which can be transformed into a stage. The floors of middle and upper rooms are both slightly elevated so that an audience can attain a better view of the performances. The plays performed here belonged to the performance art of noh, the classical Japanese dance-drama that developed since the 14th century, typically accompanied by kyōgen, a comic act often performed as an interval during noh performances.

The sliding door panels in the upper room are painted with scenes of a willow tree in each of the four seasons, a repeated appearance of the love of seasonal landscapes in Japanese art. The middle room is decorated with paintings of mountains. The paintings in both rooms are of unknown authorship but are thought to be by an artist associated with the Hasegawa Tōhaku (1539–1610) atelier, which specialized in detailed depictions of nature. The peacock images in the lower room are by Ishida Yūtei (1721–1786), a painter known for his skilled flora and fauna.

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Together these rooms are designated as National Treasure.

出典: 地域観光資源の多言語解説文データベース（観光庁） — www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db. この英語解説文は観光庁の地域観光資源の多言語解説整備支援事業で作成しました。
Source: Japan Tourism Agency, Multilingual Explanation Database. This English text was produced by the Japan Tourism Agency's multilingual explanation project and is shown unedited. Opening hours and services may have changed since it was written.