A Tribute to Miss Lucy

Continuing our celebration of “Miss Lucy,” this exhibition features a small selection of the Japanese Buddhist vestments that Lucy Truman Aldrich gave to RISD in 1935 and 1955.

Buddhism and its tradition of vestments originated in India and gradually reached Japan through Central Asia, China, and Korea. The main vestment, called a kesa in Japanese, is usually a rectangular patchwork made up of many pieces sewn together in a columnar configuration. It is most frequently worn over the left shoulder.

Kesa are divided into three levels of formality, increasing with the number of their columns. The illustration shows the parts of a kesa: columns, internal framework, border, and corner squares. Often inner squares that flank the central column are also included. In many kesa the patchwork quality is subverted and the integrity of the textile’s pattern is maintained instead; this is especially true of kesa made from textiles with large continuous pictorial patterns.

Kesa are sometimes likened to mandalas (representations of the Buddhist cosmos) with the central column identified as a Buddha and the four corner patches representing the guardians of the four directions. The earliest kesa preserved in Japan were assembled from small irregularly shaped pieces of cloth that seem like discarded rags, but later examples are frequently made of luxury textiles, brilliantly colored and patterned with gold threads. Ink inscriptions on their linings often reveal that kesa were given to temples in memory of deceased relatives. Occasionally kesa were made from donated garments.

Miss Lucy’s gifts also included accessory vestments such as stoles, cloths for seated meditation, and decorative cords for kesa, some of which are also shown here.