BALTIMORE, MD — This September, the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) will open The Way of Nature: Art from Japan, China, and Korea, which draws on the museum’s extensive holdings to consider the importance of nature in East Asian cultures. The exhibition features more than 40 objects, from magnificent ink drawings to beautifully crafted stoneware and poignant contemporary photographs and prints. Collectively, the works reflect on nature as a vital source of creative inspiration and spiritual connection and consider human existence within the complexity of the vast natural world across centuries and into the present day. The Way of Nature: Art from Japan, China, and Korea will be on view September 21, 2025, through March 8, 2026, and is part of the BMA’s Turn Again to the Earth initiative, which explores the relationships between art and the environment.
“The Way of Nature offers an insightful look at the intertwining roots of artistic expression and the experience of the natural world through vibrant works from the BMA’s Asian art collection. It’s an exciting opportunity to see objects on view for the first time, or in a long time, through a lens that is both accessible and meaningful, as many of us seek connection through and to nature,” said Asma Naeem, the BMA’s Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director.
The Way of Nature is organized around four overarching themes that engage with elemental aspects of the natural world and human intervention within it. The exhibition opens with a section that examines depictions, interpretations, and connections to the qualities of air, water, and stone. Another section explores the significance of the changing seasons as visual indicators of nature’s transformative power. It continues with works that capture human intrusion into the natural realm, as artists reveal humanity’s environmental impact through both imagery of calamitous events and in more subtle and ambiguous scenes, and concludes with consideration of the spiritual transcendence that can be found in nature.
More information: https://artbma.org
