Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum

This guide to a folding screen at the Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum starts with tiny painted pilgrims wading into the sea, work by an unnamed Kano school artist from the 1600s or 1700s that turns out to double as a rulebook. It explains why Itsukushima, the shrine island across the bay, was considered too sacred for anyone to be born or die on, sending expectant mothers and the dying alike rowing back to the mainland, and follows the painted route from purifying bath to shrine buildings raised on stilts above the water. Look for the gold clouds drifting across the panels, the painter's way of hiding the seams between them.