If the shiny black helmet of a Japanese suit of armor makes you think of Darth Vader, you are right. Made of leather, the armor is part of a show devoted to samurai culture at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.

In a case of art imitating life, Vader's costume was inspired in part by traditional samurai armor from the Edo period (1615-1868). On closer inspection, you marvel at the artfulness with which the armor is made. The overlapping steel plates, wrapped in black leather and corded together with blue silk lacing, gives the sinister suit an austere beauty enhanced by the black lacquered helmet and curved crest, which resembles the antennae of a giant insect.

The somber style and coloration of the Sansai-style armor reflects the relatively staid practicality of armor worn in the late Edo period, when troubled times foreshadowed the end of a long feudal era as the time of the shoguns and the daimyo, hereditary noblemen, was about to pass.

Earlier suits of armor on view in "Lords of the Samurai: The Legacy of a Daimyo Family" are much more colorful and flamboyant, reflecting a time when samurai warriors preened and posed on the battlefield in an attempt to outshine each other. Thus a replica of a suit worn in the 14th century by the daimyo lord Hosokawa Yoriari glows with a gilt bronze crest and, like Jacob's coat of many colors, sports a rainbow of hues arranged in intricately striped geometric patterns.  It's one of the most elaborate examples of the exquisite craftsmanship and artistry of samurai objects in a show that is drawn from the collection of the Hosokawa family, which dates back 700 years.

Hosokawa Morihiro, the current head of the family whose history is intimately linked with the history of Japan's military rulers, the Shogunate, was on hand at the press preview of the exhibition to introduce the remarkable objects that tell the story of the cultured warriors who once ruled Japan. In addition to being swordsmen and military strategists, the Hosokawas, like all samurai warriors, were cultured gentlemen schooled in the arts of poetry, painting, calligraphy and the tea ceremony. Hosokawa Morihiro, a former prime minister of Japan, is himself a maker of ceremonial tea ceramics, several of which are on view in the exhibition.

The Hosokawa family is noted not only for military prowess but also for its pursuit of art and culture. The current show of more than 150 works, ranging from painted scrolls and screens to elegant Noh costumes, is drawn from the 6,000 works in the family's collection, which rivals that of the imperial family. It is the most comprehensive exhibit from the collection ever done and the Asian Art Museum is its only venue. 

In his remarks, Hosokawa Morihiro said that his family had been fortunate in that, in all the many battles over seven centuries, there had been no fires to destroy the family's art collection. In the exhibition catalog he writes that because Japanese warriors put their lives on the line in battle, they prized art and literature all the more highly, and no general would be able to live through troubled times without being versed in literature and the Way of Tea. 

Daimyos, he notes, "decorated their swords with elaborately ornamented mountings and went to battle in exquisitely designed armor. They performed dances from the Noh theater and, as they approached death, they composed verses of classical waka poetry."

They also rewarded valor in battle with highly prized utensils for the tea ceremony in times when a single tea bowl could be worth as much as the land in an entire province. On view in the exhibit are a large array of tea bowls, stands and scoops as well as fresh water jars and iron kettles used in the making of ceremonial tea. The bowls range from refined tenmoku vessels to rustic tea bowls that play on the beauty of imperfection and are more highly prized than the more traditionally elegant ones.

A number of fine screens are exhibited throughout the show including a rich scene of an old pine tree and peonies on a luminous gold background, chosen to show up in the dark interiors of the daimyo's castle as well as to signal his wealth and status.

Another striking screen captures a scene of dog chasing – a samurai sport that was a gentler version of fox hunting. The dogs were not harmed, as the object was to shoot the dogs with heavily padded arrows, a task that challenged the samurais' skill as horsemen and archers.

A number of scrolls in the show range from beautiful flower paintings to portraits of Hosokawa daimyos like Hosokawa Shigekata (1720-1785), a scholar and visionary social reformer who built a school for samurai and a teaching hospital, which served both samurai and commoners who could afford treatment. It is the ancestor of a present-day Japanese medical university. 

A section of the show is devoted to Miyamoto Mushashi (1584-1645), a ronin (masterless samurai) who was the most famous swordsman and painter of his day. On view are "The Book of Five Rings," a set of scrolls that contain his famous treatise on swordsmanship, and examples of his paintings, such as a dashing image of a wild horse and a screen depicting wild geese and reeds.

Mushashi, who was the equivalent of a top gun in samurai terms, was taken under the protection of the Hosokawa family and spent his final years in relative peace, teaching swordsmanship with wooden swords and dying a natural death.

  The symbol of the warrior, a sword, regarded as "the soul of the samurai," had a sacred status. The highest sign of a daimyo's status, swords were the item most frequently given as gifts to military households.

At the center of the show are a series of elegantly beautiful and dangerously lethal swords that were used by members of the Hosokawa family over their seven-century history and are still in miraculously pristine condition, revealing their reverence for the artisanship of arms makers. Accompanying them are exquisite mountings and sword fittings and wonderfully fanciful and elegant sword guards (tsuba), one in the shape of a dancing crane.

Like the former prime minister, many of the members of the clan were accomplished artists, poets and tea masters. Among the items made by Hosokawa scions is an ingeniously imagined picnic set made by Hosokawa Sansai (1563-1645). This elegant set is composed of an eggplant-shape sake flask, a food container and a sake cup in the shape of an eggplant leaf attached to the bottle stopper.  Also on view are a series of luxurious Noh drama robes as well as more humble but livelier costumes for Kyogen plays, comedic productions performed during the interludes of the more formal Noh plays.

The show concludes with a series of works relating to Zen Buddhism whose emphasis on self-reliance particularly appealed to samurai warriors. Because the show contains many light-sensitive objects, 50 items in the show will be replaced with 50 more beginning Aug. 3. More than 100 objects will be on view during each rotation and each will contain a selection of works designated Important Cultural Properties and Important Art Objects by the Japanese government.  Ticket prices for the show include a $5 surcharge over regular museum admission.  A fully illustrated catalog of the exhibition published by the Asian Art Museum is available at the museum store, $30 softcover, $45 hardcover.

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