This July, the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Painted Poetry on Film series will continue with three Japanese films spanning the 1950s to the 1990s. Japan has a rich film heritage and the screenings include films from some of the country’s most important filmmakers: Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, and Masaki Kobayashi.

By Seema Rao
Museum Educator

The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art may not seem to have too much lure to someone who can’t read English poetry, let alone Japanese. However, the exhibition can hold quite a draw to the under 5 set. Below is a tour of the exhibition by Maya, a 4-year-old visitor who chose a few of her favorite works.

“My name is Maya. I like to do stuff at school and home like painting. Here are some things here that I like.”

Seunghye Sun, associate curator of Japanese and Korean art, shares a work from our collection. The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art, the first in-depth comparison of the achievements of Korea and Japan from the late 14th century, consists of some 100 examples from the museum’s permanent collection—many that have never been shown since the 1990s.