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Published: October 14th 2013
Sculpture
Ground Floor, Honkan Gallery, Tokyo National MuseumMonday morning and I had decided to spend the day in Tokyo. After having a look around at what to do, I decided to leave the Imperial Palace gardens until Wednesday because it is apparently closed on Mondays. So it was off to the Tokyo National Museum and, depending on time, whatever else in Ueno-koen park – I figured probably the Science and Nature Museum.
The nearest subway station to my hotel has a total of 5 subway lines stopping there, and luckily the Ginza line goes to Ueno so I didn’t have to change. I arrived at Ueno and began my visit to the park by sitting down and eating some breakfast. I then wandered past some statues and stuff towards the Tokyo National Museum.
While lining up to buy a ticket, I realised that I had been incredibly fortunate. Apparently the museum is also closed on Mondays, but clearly it was open today. It turns out Monday was a public holiday – Sports and Health Day according to Google. So the museum was open, and presumably the Imperial Palace gardens too. Anyway, I decided to buy a ticket to the special exhibit because
Statue
Ueno-koen park why not? I wasn’t 100% sure what the special exhibit was. From the signs, I gathered it was something to do with Kyoto.
So I headed into the regular exhibits first. The lady at the information desk seemed keen for me to go and see the art exhibits on the second floor, but I decided to stick with the ground floor first because it looked pretty cool too. What was also cool was that you can take photos of anything, unless it was specifically signposted. Rather than just have a blanket no photo policy, most things were fine to photograph. I appreciated that.
The ground floor contained plenty of different things, from sculptures to ceramics to swords and other metalwork. And every sign had an English version, which was nice. I worked my way through, pretty much reading everything and taking lots of photos.
I then headed upstairs to the art exhibitions. This covered Japanese art from the earliest Jomon period, right through to the end of the Edo period. There were sculptures, Buddhist ritual items, paintings, folding screens, samurai armour, calligraphy and theatre (Noh and Kabuki) items. Again, I read
Fountains
Ueno-koen park most of the information signs and took plenty of photos. When I left the building, I was a bit surprised to find it had been 3 hours since I’d gone in.
I was now under some time pressure because I was planning to be back at the hotel at 4:30 to have a Skype video call with my dad, sister and nieces and nephew. They, of course, are 2 hours ahead so we had to make sure it was early enough so the kids didn’t stay up late on a school night.
Anyway, after grabbing a drink, I headed to the special exhibit building. The ground floor of the building has an archaeology gallery that I checked out first. It was really interesting, with archaeological finds from the earliest humans to live in Japan through to the end of the Edo period. The information signs here were particularly interesting because they detailed the influences of China and Korea, and the changes happening there, at different times in Japan’s past.
This left me with little time to check out the special exhibit. Unlike the regular exhibits, this one did have a blanket
no photo policy, unfortunately. The exhibit started with a lot of folding screens called “Scenes In and Around Kyoto”. It seems that this was a very popular theme for artists to paint. All of the screens were different, but were birds-eye views of medieval Kyoto (including lots of clouds which, to be honest, struck me as a bit of laziness on the part of the artists). Some were commissioned by lords and focussed on the Imperial Palace and Nijo castle, but others focussed on everyday life and included street vendors and so forth. They were pretty good, but it was hard to get a close look because, unlike the regular exhibits, this one was packed.
The next room featured a scene from the Ryoan-ji temple in Kyoto. It was projected onto three large screens and featured a seamless transition through the different seasons. So you could see the snow come, then the cherry blossoms flower, then the rain and the insects of summer, followed by the beautiful red colours of autumn. I don’t know how it was done, because the transitions were seamless even though the wind moved the trees and stuff. A panel also mentioned that
Sculpture
Ground Floor, Honkan Gallery, Tokyo National Museum this is technically a 10k projection because it features 3 overlapping 4k projectors (4k being the next step up from HD). It was very impressive.
The final room had some wall paintings from the Ninomaru Palace in Nijo Castle. When I saw them, I remembered reading a sign when I visited the palace and castle that mentioned some wall paintings were in Tokyo for an exhibit. Now I knew which one! Anyway, they were all very nice but I had to rush through this part because I had run out of time.
I finished the day by walking back through Ueno-koen park via a different path and caught the metro back to my hotel. Tomorrow I am planning on using my rail pass for the last time and heading up to see the temples and shrines of Nikko.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Lovely art
Smart rules not to ban everything from being photographed. We are enjoying your explorations.