History is full of lies but, there's at least one truth you can count on: times of great upheaval and change often lead to, and are on occasion born of, great flowerings of human genius.
In case anybody was asleep during that part of history class, all that is needed as a refresher is a trip to the Yamaguchi Prefectural Art Museum in southern Honshu to see a powerful and exhaustive exhibition of the works of the 15th-century Japanese painter, scholar and Zen monk, Toyo Sesshu.
"Sesshu e no Tabi," awkwardly translated into English as "The Trip to Sesshu," showing till Nov. 30, celebrates the 500th anniversary of the artist's death. It is the second large exhibition featuring Sesshu in recent years, following a 2002 show at the Tokyo National Museum. These two exhibitions represent a veritable landslide of Sesshu retrospectives, given that before 2002 the last time museumgoers had a chance to see so much of the artist's work in one place was on his 450th anniversary.