Snow Melts

From 21 February to 3 May 2026, an exhibition “Snow Melts. Japanese Art” is on view at the Art Museum RIGA BOURSE.

雪とけて
村いっぱいの
子どもかな

Snow melts
and the village is flooded
with children

Kobayashi Issa (小林一茶, 1763–1828)

Spring in Japanese culture brings together the rhythms of nature, the cycles of human life, and an aesthetic way of perceiving the world into a single, symbolically rich experience. It marks the boundary between the old and the new, both in nature and in human life, and thus becomes a significant point of departure for change.

The exhibition displays works from the Japanese art collection of the Latvian National Museum of Art – colourful woodblock prints ukiyo-e, lacquerware, and porcelain and ceramic objects, which depict this season so essential to Japan in a variety of ways.