Past ExhibitionsExhibition
Villains in the Frame
- Dates
- Tuesday, 27 June – Sunday, 3 September 2023
- Hours
- 9:30 am – 5:30 pm
Fridays, Saturdays 9:30 am – 8:00 pm
Admission ends 30 mins. before closing time - Closed
- Mondays (except for 17 July and 14 August) and 18 July
- Venue
- Prints and Drawings Gallery, New Wing
- Admission Fees
-
Adults 500 yen (400 yen), college and university students 250 yen (200 yen)
- * Admission is free for Special Exhibition or Permanent Collection ticket holders.
- * Numbers in parenthesis indicate discount fees for groups of 20 or more.
- * Free for high school students, under 18, seniors (65 and over), Campus Members. Please show your ID upon entrance.
- * Disabled visitors admitted free of charge, with one attendant. Please present your disability identification upon arrival.
- * Free admission of this exhibition and Permanent Collection on 9 July, 13 August and 3 September, 2023 (Kawasaki Free Sunday).
- * Free admission of this exhibition, Permanent Collection and Special Exhibition on 26 August, 2023 (Free Talking Day).
- Organized by
- The National Museum of Western Art
- With the cooperation of
- The Western Art Foundation
There are lots of villains at the NMWA! But we don’t mean the staff members! These are villains whose stories are told in some NMWA collection art works. Youths blinded by money, men lusting after young women, jealous old hags, thieves, and their like. Personifications of evil, witches, demons, and their groveling henchmen. Death – that which we most fear – appears in the works of some periods as vicious, loathsome skeletons.
While we are meant to shun these villains, and not just those in human guise, their richly individualistic, at times comical, appearance in pictures fascinate us, often more so than those of the worthy, angels, or saints. Surely, in these depictions of villains we can sense and enjoy each artist’s flights of fancy.
And, yet, while there are some depictions of evil and the improper from the far-off past that carry the same meaning today, there are also those we struggle to understand. While we still find murder and jealousy evil and improper, we might feel it strange that gluttony was considered a sin. The line between good and evil is unchanging in some ways, while in others, it is a wavering moving line, depending on period, region, and society. This exhibition provides an encounter with one aspect of past European value systems. In addition to dozens of prints, this exhibition will also display several paintings.
Exhibition Checklist (PDF file, about 1.10MB)
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Albrecht Dürer
Knight, Death and Devil
1513 Engraving
The National Museum of Western Art -
Marcantonio Raimondi, Agostino Veneziano (Agostino dei Musi)
The Witches Rout (Lo Stregozzo)
Engraving
The National Museum of Western Art -
Stefano della Bella
<Les cinq Morts>: Death on a Horse with a Trumpet
1648 Etching
The National Museum of Western Art -
Honoré Daumier
<LIFE’S HAPPY DAYS>: (97) THEY RETURN FROM SPONGING OFF POPPETS.
1846 Lithograph
The National Museum of Western Art