IN TOKYO
TOKYO has acquired a justified reputation as a great place for shopping and fine dining among visitors. But perhaps less well known is the fact that this is a place to view great works of art as well.
Art exhibitions are big draws in Japan, but one in particular that has been packing them in is an exhibition of works on the theme "Post Impressionism". The 115 masterworks in this exhibition are on loan from the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.
The display is surely one of the biggest tourist draws this summer — Japanese tourists that is, as I saw few obviously foreign people on a recent visit.
On display is the famous painting by Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh of his bedroom in Arles, a city in southern France where he lived. There are three versions of this painting, each featuring a different assortment of portraits on the wall to the right.
The one owned by the d'Orsay is the third version, which came about when Van Gogh, a year before he died, decided to redo some of his best works in a smaller size to present to his mother and sister.
Also on display is French painter Claude Monet's Water Lilies, one of some 250 paintings in a series done by him, depicting his flower garden at Giverny, a town in northern France.
The Japanese love Monet, not least because he admired Japanese art and his works are heavily influenced by it. The Water Lilies show a Japanese style bridge that he had in his garden.
Although the exhibition opened on May 26, there are still long queues to get in, especially in the morning when one might have to wait 30-50 minutes.
Once inside, however, the crowd is really not all that bad. One can linger as long as one likes in front of any painting.
That was not the case in 1974, when Leonardo da Vinci's well-known Mona Lisa was exhibited in Tokyo. Some 1.5 million Japanese went to see the painting, a record yet to be broken.
The queues outside the museum were up to 2 km long! Inside, people had to be kept moving to make sure they did not remain too long in front of the Mona Lisa.
Unusual for an exhibition of masterworks, visitors to the d'Orsay exhibition are allowed to stand really close to the paintings. But for works by the Impressionists and post-Impressionists, in most cases, you really want to stand away from a painting to appreciate it better.
The exhibition is on until Aug 16, 2010 at the National Art Centre, Tokyo, located in Roppongi, a district known for its night life but which has been extensively redeveloped in recent years.
The National Art Centre facility is unique. It boasts a total of 14,000 sq. m. of exhibition space, the largest in Japan, but has no permanent collection of its own. Typically, there are several exhibitions going on at the same time.
There are also two privately-owned museums in the Roppongi area - the Suntory Museum of Art and the Mori Art Museum.
Under a scheme to promote all three facilities, entry to an ongoing exhibition at one of the three entitles one to buy discounted tickets for specified exhibitions at the other two.
Incidentally, the 115 paintings from the d'Orsay collection can normally only be seen in Paris. The Tokyo exhibition is made possible by the fact the d'Orsay is renovating its popular Impressionist galleries at this time, allowing the paintings to leave its premises.
Before the exhibition opened in Tokyo, the paintings went on display in Canberra, Australia. If you miss them in Tokyo, you will have to go to San Francisco where they will be shown for four months from mid September.
The exhibition here is jointly organized by the National Art Centre, the Musee d'Orsay and the leading business daily Nikkei. It is not uncommon for Japanese dailies to lend their names to major art exhibitions, considering how popular such events are with the Japanese public.
For example, the leading Asahi Shimbun daily is behind an exhibition of European masterpieces from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts now currently on at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art.
That exhibition runs until Aug 29 and is certainly worth a trip to the ancient capital if you are visiting Japan.