A few weeks ago, I visited the Adachi Museum of Art, which is famous both for its Japanese garden as well as its collection of art. While I was there, listening intently to my ￥500 English audio guide, I made a list of all the artworks that struck me in one way or the other. I did this with the intention of sharing my favorites with you: my readers!
I’ll begin with a small collection of paintings of women. The first two depict women traversing through the snow, protecting themselves from the weather with parasols. The one of the left is called Spring Snow by Ito Shinsui and the one on the right is Large Snowflakes by Uemura Shoen.
Spring Snow especially stood out to me because of the depth of space. Traditional Japanese art is usually very flatly painted; hardly any of the hyper-realistic shading often found in western art. Yet, here, Ito Shinsui uses a light hand and careful placement to create a depth of space among the woman, the umbrella, the snow and the almost-solid background.
I hardly noticed at first, but the English audio guide pointed out that in Large Snowflakes, Uemura Shoen strays from a traditional layout and places his two subjects in the corner of the painting rather than in the center. Although the painting is technically off-center, a dynamic movement is created. For me, this off balance placement creates the feeling that the women are in transit: quickly trying to escape the snow. Not unlike me today. Also, I love the big fat snowflakes. The effect is lost a little through digital reproduction, but the big white flakes on the pinky-beige background have a great weight to them that reminds me of heavy, wet snow.
The third painting is called Daughter Miyuki, also painted by Uemura Shoen. This one is of course beautiful on its own, but really stands out with a backstory. The beautiful woman in the painting is Miyuki, a girl who, while admiring fireflies in a field, almost gets assaulted by a bandit. But, she is saved by a man named Asojiro. As a token of his love, he writes a poem on a fan and gives it to Miyuki as a gift (which was common practice at that time). In this painting, Miyuki has been admiring the fan and thinking of her love, but, sensing that someone is behind her, turns around and quickly hides the fan under her sleeve. You can see the dark fan under the folds of her kimono! What I loved about this the most was how Uemura so deftly communicates Miyuki’s startled and somewhat embarrassed feeling in such a simple painting. Also, the painting is actually quite large, so I found myself spending quite a long time admiring the details. You can look closely at the painting from your computer by clicking here and using Google Cultural Institute.
Additionally, you might not be familiar with Japanese names and I know I didn’t realize it at first (always read the plaques!), but Uemura Shoen is a female painter who worked mostly in the late 1800s and early 1900s, most famous for her paintings of beautiful women. You can read a little more on her here.
Here, I have a little collection of paintings by Yokoyama Taikan: two paintings of the ocean and two paintings of Mt Fuji. What I loved about Yokoyama’s work (The Adachi Museum has a very good collection of his work) was how he could create a beautiful, interesting work using as little as possible. I won’t go into too much detail here, but I love that each piece, although they depict the same thing, can create an entirely different feeling, setting, emotion of place.
Lastly, I’ll wrap up with some contemporary paintings. These paintings are all on quite a large scale and, unfortunately, as digital reproductions, do not quite hold up to their physical counterparts. If you click each picture, however, it will take you to Google Cultural Institute, where you can zoom into high quality images. These three paintings really stood out to me, through their use of color and their subject matter. Each painting communicates quite a lot.
Finally, there were a few artists whose specific paintings I liked, but couldn’t find online. You can still enjoy some of their work here: Yoshimura Seiji & Midori Mori.
Thank you for reading! Hopefully this was interesting for you! Next, I’ll post some pictures from a few day trips I’ve taken in the past few weeks. If there’s anything you’d like to know about my trip or my experiences, please ask in the comments!
WhaleWalk 
How beautiful these paintings are! I am accustomed to the classics from across the Atlantic. To be surrounded by the classics across the Pacific is wonderful indeed. These selections are so peaceful, excluding “Daughter Miyuki” which shows calm in an alarming situation. Love your posts.
I agree! Even though it’s a somewhat stressful situation, its still painted very gracefully
Thank you,
Christine, that you would share your love and insight of these lovely works of art. My dear, I want to know everything about your trip and experiences. Aunt Frannie is right. These beautiful paintings do bring a sense of peace to me along with much feeling.
There is so much to explore in each one of these. It’s good to know that you are surrounded by such cultural richness as well as natural beauty. Sometimes, it is made more apparent in a place less rushed.