To smell a rose, I went to see "Masterworks from Liechtenstein" at National Art Center Tokyo.
Of couse, it's my first to get off at the Nogizaka station of Tokyo Metro Chiyoda-sen subway. I luckily found the elevator that would take me directly to the art center entrance. It makes my life easier as there's no way for me to get lost, which happens almost every time I go out. "Roji" or allays in Tokyo is one of the most challenging and frustrating experiences. As a newly arrived country bumpkin, I am learning the roji, which probably accounts for 80 percent of the street system of Tokyo. In a sense, the convenience of station-to-art center elevator steals my opportunity to learn roji of Nogizaka and take a pic.
National Art Center Tokyo's building looked to me a mass of concrete, which reminds me of J.Paul. Getty Museum in Los Angels. The latter especially looks like a fort rather than an art museum... The center's designed as if to protect expensive artworks (not patrons) borrowed from a foreign country, paying huge insurance premium. A Good thing about the Art Center is tables deployed along dramatic glass windows so that patrons can enjoy views through windows while having coffee. But still the building appears like an office building rather than art museum.
I thought it's Monday and there would be little patrons. Wrong! Fairly crowded with "obasan" or 40 to 50-ish married women with plentiful time on hand. A group of five is pasted in front of an exhibit and some with more than ten! I rarely experienced such a crowd in any San Francisco museum. It's not really "a rose" I was smelling but "frowsty smell of an overcoat kept in closet for two seasons." Considering the size of crowd, the center needs more bathroom compartments for sure.
The exhibit was pretty good. Many of the works were created around the same period with those masterworks exhibited in「"17th-century Dutch Masterworks"」held in San Francisco, and I was suddenly taken over by nostalgia for San Francisco.... Jan von Hysummn and Joris von Song etc. I recalled a docent explaining: "At that time, there were a limited varieties of flowers and cut flowers were luxury. So people hang flower drawings on the wall instead of real cut flowers." In Japan, there's no volunteer docent system. People pay for a recorded guide tape （SF has a sound guide system）。I tried it and found not more explanation than you read on a card pinned next to an exhibit.
One of the highlights of the exhibit is four paintings on the ceiling. They depict four different arts, one of which is paining and depict an old master teaching a young lovely lady painting. What's interesting about it is that the old master's hand is touching the woman's naked shoulder. This couldn't happen in reality. Probably the woman belonged to aristocracy and even a master painter couldn't touch her for any reason. Then why was the painting painted that way? I think it's customer service on the part of the painter commissioned by Lord Liechtenstein. He was an old guy and must have secretly drawn pleasure each time when he looked up to the painting on the ceiling.
Raffaello's portrait of a man is pretty modern and looking back at you. It's a classic painting with beautiful blue sky. A drawing of two mysterious wearing masks but must be beautiful women plotting a revenge. 17th Dutch and Flemish still paintings that emit warmth...
The last painting of the exhibit is a portrait of a baby resting peacefully. The drawing captures what it looks like when one is being in complete feeling of security and twinklings of the edge of thin silk collar softly covering the baby's neck. It's so peaceful that I couldn't help staring at the baby and when I exited the exhibition floor, I felt as if I had also had a long satisfying rest. I'd like to thank to the one who came up with the placement of works so that the baby was decided to the last work of the exhibit.
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