A Tribute to Miss Lucy
Introduction
In 1935, Miss Lucy Truman Aldrich, daughter of Senator Nelson W. Aldrich of Providence, gave the Museum 47 costumes from the No theater of Japan. Despite her congenital deafness and the political chaos in the Far East, this remarkable woman traveled frequently to Asia, purchasing the robes in Japan in the 1920s. With great foresight Miss Aldrich's dealer, Yamanaka and Company, provided her with information about the former owners of the robes, which came from the collections of noble Japanese daimyo families, so that her collection is among the best documented in the world.
The No theater, developed in medieval Japan, is above all a theater of suggestion, calling up legends and stories of ancient times. The plays build up a web of feelings through poetic imagery, heaped layer upon layer in slow recitation, declamation, song, and dance. Every element of a play, from poetic allusion to magnificent costuming, builds on every other to allow the audience to experience the essence of the distant past, and the melancholy of life's impermanence.
All the costumes in this exhibition are for the main character in a No play. Like the No drama itself, the costumes, vast, sculptural, brilliantly colored, form layer upon layer. They are larger and more splendid than life, recalling the magnificence of medieval Japanese court life. Their patterns allude to poetry, literature, or other arts, and their designs and colors have meaning, as seen in the costumes in the cases in this gallery.
Susan Hay
Exhibition images
