Painted Prayers

Painted Prayers: The Japanese Folk Art Tradition of Ema exhibition highlights one of Japan’s most fascinating folk painting traditions, ema – house-shaped wooden votive plaques offered as prayers in Japan’s Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Most ema are small and traditionally feature hand-painted imagery of deities, animals, or objects, representing wishes as general as good fortune for the coming year or as specific as the removal of warts. The objects are overflowing with color, hope, and humor, including some very surprising visual puns. For centuries, worshippers have inscribed these ema with impassioned prayers and hung them up on wooden stands outside shrine and temple halls, hoping that the gods will read them and grant their wishes before the end of the year, when the plaques are ritually burned. Painted Prayers: The Japanese Folk Art Tradition of Ema will present the history of this religious painting tradition, explain the different uses of large and small ema, and introduce the many different categories of images and the prayers associated with each of them. Curated by Japanese art historian Meher McArthur, this will be the first museum exhibition in the United States to present such an extensive and varied display of ema, both large and small, ranging from the 18th century to the present day.

Banner Image
Unidentified Maker, Votive Plaque (Ema) – Horse, c. 1840 – 1870, Japan. Cryptomeria wood (Sugi), paint. 11 3/16 x 16 15/16in. Gift of Keisuke Serizawa, 1980-03-055.