Sugawara Michizane (also known as Tenjin) has long been venerated as the deity of learning, culture, and the arts. The foremost art and culture from every era have been gathered around Tenjin in a collection of more than 10,000 documents and art objects, including Michizane’s calligraphic work, his sword, and the “Hanyuan (Kan’en)”, a national treasure.
In order to convey and pass down the legacy of Tenjin as the patron deity of culture and the arts to the modern age, Dazaifu Tenmangu launched the Dazaifu Tenmangu Art Program in 2006. This program exhibits the diversity of contemporary culture and, by assembling talent from both Japan and abroad, it gives rise to unique pieces of art. The shrine also actively collects contemporary artworks, regardless of nationality or genre.
We are also pleased to announce that the “anonymous collection” has donated to the shrine a work called “Negative Entropy (Dazaifu Tenmangu, Morning Ritual, Purple, Quad)” by Mika Tajima. This work, which was realized at the shrine by the artist, is very important to the shrine.
In addition to the unveiling of this work, we introduced a wide variety of paintings by Japanese and international artists from our art collection.