The beauty behind the bamboo curtain

THE TALE OF THE BAMBOO CUTTER/TAKETORI MONOGATARI:Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sat 11am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm Until Aug 5 01-4070750

The Chester Beatty Library is full of hidden treasures, and this exhibition highlights one of them. It consists of a set of two picture scrolls, dating from the early 17th century and believed to be the earliest surviving illustrated example of the oldest Japanese work of prose fiction, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter/Taketori monogatari, written at some stage in the 9th or 10th century, during the Heian period.

An elderly bamboo cutter comes upon a beautiful child in “a glowing bamboo stalk”. He and his wife raise the girl as their own. Her otherworldly beauty gains her a host of admirers as she grows up. Knowing that is she is a moon child and must return there, she discourages a succession of suitors, including the emperor, by setting them impossible tasks.

The scrolls, recognised as a masterpiece, are just back from a two-year restoration process at the Museum Volkenkunde in the Netherlands, undertaken with the support of the Sumitomo Foundation, Tokyo.

can’T see ThaT? caTch This

Blackshaw at 80

FE McWilliam Gallery Studio, Banbridge, Co Down