The Gold Rush.(Rimpa exhibition at National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo)

On the right as one enters the gallery hangs Gustav Klimt's "Nuda Veritas" (1899), a monumental picture of a sensual female awash in glorious gold and blue. And on the left: "Wave at Matsushima," a spectacular gold-and-green six- panel screen by the 18th-century Japanese master . This is a rare combination in a museum exhibition; curators usually don't mix traditional with modern, let alone Japanese with Western, paintings. But the new exhibition "Rimpa" (through Oct. 3) at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, blends all four. The result is one of the season's most visually gorgeous and conceptually ambitious shows.

Curator Ryo Furuta mounted the exhibit to pose one question: what is Rimpa? Literally "the Rin school," the style refers to a centuries-old Japanese art school named after Korin Ogata, its chief exponent. Characterized by the lavish use of gold, silver and bold colors and flat, highly ornamental designs, Rimpa is reflected not only in contemporary Japanese works but also in the show's Western pieces, like Klimt's "Life Is a Struggle--'Golden Knight' " (1903) and "Screen for Olivier Sainsere" (1903) by Odilon Redon. Though art scholars have long associated Rimpa pieces with the decorative, gold-coated paintings by these European artists, this is the first show to explore their relationship so directly. "It is a daring and significant survey," says Eiji Tanaka, an Osaka-based Rimpa scholar. "I wish I had curated it."