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Asianart.com | Exhibitions
Introduction
The Honolulu Academy of Arts (click on small images to go to full image pages with captions)
Children's costumes cultivated in the traditional societies of China and Japan are extraordinary for their fine quality and deep symbolic meanings. While these garments have a practical function, they vividly symbolize the cultural heritage, including the religions and family traditions, of the community. In China and Japan in the early part of the 20th century, infant mortality was quite high, with many children not living to see their first birthdays. In these cultures, prosperity was believed to come from a long bloodline and from having many children. Because the child mortality rate was so high, lavish celebrations and rituals took place from birth to the time the child reached adulthood to assure the child's good fortune and longevity. These elaborate rituals often involved textiles and reflected the indigenous concept of life and death that was intimately connected to vulnerable children. The images below are a selection from the more than 120 examples in the exhibition, selected from the Christensen Fund Collection housed at the Academy, and from the Academy's own textile collection. For more information, please see the accompanying Introduction.
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