The legacies of talented multi-generational families not only reveal each member's individual achievements but also offer a glimpse of how the changing currents of the times impact individual creativity. Such is the case with the three Kishida generations of "Ginko, Ryusei, and Reiko Kishida: Genealogy of Innovative Spirit" at the Setagaya Art Museum.
The family head, Ginko (1833-1905), lived and ran a shop in Tokyo's fashionable Ginza district, making and selling eye drops, but his business acumen was just part of his all-round identity as a man of culture. He was also Japan's first war reporter, who recorded the invasion of Taiwan in 1874, and he jointly edited the first Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionary, published in 1867 and included on display at this exhibition. That project took Ginko to Shanghai to oversee production, as there were no letterhead printing presses in Japan at that time.
In one corner of the exhibition are a selection of his hanging scrolls. Some are pure calligraphy, but a few also have images of bamboo or mushrooms painted in ink by Ginko's own hand, alongside his poetry.