Exit Palaceside Building's west entrance, stroll across Takebashi, and you reach the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (MOMAT) — a temple of modern art with over 9,000 works. Japanese-style painting, Western-style painting and sculpture: masterpieces of Japanese art since Meiji are collected here.
Built in Kyobashi in 1952 after the war, but with growing collections, in 1
969 it moved to its current site in a corner of Kitanomaru Park. The building was donated by Bridgestone's de facto founder Shojiro Ishibashi — also founder of the Bridgestone Museum of Art and a major collector. Former PM Yukio Hatoyama and former minister Kunio Hatoyama are his grandsons. Patrons attach to artists and politicians; Ishibashi was a great patron of art.
MOMAT's special exhibitions are wonderful, but some 200 works on permanent display must not be missed either. I'll introduce them here.
First up:「Girl with Roses」. Many geniuses appear in Western-style painting; Taikan Murayama of the Taisho era is legendary too. This 1917 (Taisho 6) work, a masterpiece, pairs a girl's red cheeks with a large pink rose in a dreamlike world. Naivete and confidence — as if the girl were Taikan himself. A painting of the soul beyond beauty.
In this era, Western painters without economic base or apprenticeship systems routinely faced poverty and illness — only their talent to rely on. Taikan paid for a decadent, free life with tuberculosis and poverty, dying at 22 in 1919. Active only five years as a painter; also gifted in poetry, his work shows passion bursting free of schools and tradition. Never seeing success in life invites comparison with van Gogh and Gauguin, tragedies of pure art.
Face this painting and Taikan. After savoring that passion, enjoy fine tea at Palaceside Building. (Closed Sundays.)