Discovering the Tokyo National Museum

Welcome to the Tokyo National Museum, home of the world's largest collection of Japanese art and artifacts. Founded in 1872, it's also the oldest national museum in Japan. My name is Miłosz Woźny and I'm a member of the museum's international relations team. Today I'll be introducing you to our displays and giving you some tips for enjoying our collection as we tour the museum. We have five museum buildings on our campus for exhibiting our collection. At any given time, you'll find over 3,000 items on display. But this is just a small part of our collection, so we change the items on display regularly. That means every time you come back, there's something new to see. Now let's take a look inside each of our buildings, starting with this one, the Honkan. The Honkan is our main building and if you're visiting the museum for the first time, we recommend that you start on the second floor for an overview of Japanese art. Taken all together, the second floor tells the story of Japanese art from prehistory all the way up to the late 1800s, which is when the age of the samurai came to an end. Within this story of Japanese art, we tell smaller stories through the items on display. Let's take a look at two examples, a suit of samurai armor and a woman's kimono. This is a suit of armor that was made over 300 years ago for Kuroda Takamasa, a samurai lord who ruled in northern Kyushu. Now as you can see, the helmet has a very unusual design and these kind of extravagant helmets became very popular in the 1500s, partly because samurai generals wanted to stand out on the battlefield so that they could better rally and command their troops. That large piece that rises from the back is said to represent the face of a cliff. This design refers to a legend in which the samurai general Minamoto no Yoshitsune led his down a cliff on horseback in a daring attack that caught his enemies off guard and forced them to flee the battlefield. Now it's possible that the cliff shape was important in and of itself as a symbol of the awe-inspiring power of nature, which is something that the samurai wanted to draw strength from. So this helmet is just one example of how many of the items in our collection are inspired by legends and spiritual beliefs. Moving on, here we have a woman's kimono from the 1700s. Now this kimono holds a special place in our collection because the silk fabric was hand-painted by Ogata Kourin, who was one of Kyoto's most famous artists at the time. The story behind this kimono is that Kourin traveled from Kyoto to the city of Edo, which is now Tokyo, where he was invited to stay at the home of a merchant family. As a thank-you gift, he painted this kimono and gave it to the merchant's wife. Kourin chose to feature fall plants in his designs, chrysanthemums and bush clovers, among others, so the kimono is perfect to wear in the fall. As you tour our galleries, you'll notice that many of the items on display reflect the current season. Now you can find fall plants like these, but if you visit us during the spring, you'll probably find lots of designs with cherry blossoms. Now let's go down to the first floor, where you'll find galleries dedicated to certain types of objects like sculpture, lacquer and ceramics. The sculpture gallery has many sacred images, including those of Buddhist gods and goddesses. Here we have a sculpture of Monju, the Buddhist god of wisdom, and the people surrounding him are his most devout followers. Monju himself rides a lion and holds a sword that cuts through ignorance and evil. The lacquer gallery shows us how artisans decorated everyday objects with Japanese lacquer. Here, the larger box would have been used for storing paper, and the smaller one for traditional writing tools like brushes and ink. The landscapes decorating these boxes were created with a combination of lacquer, gold and silver. The ceramics gallery also has functional objects like this water jar for the tea ceremony. Now this is very different from the lacquered boxes that we just saw. It's made in an earthy and natural style that reflects the concept of wabi-sabi, which teaches us to find beauty in imperfection and in simple everyday objects. The first floor also has a gallery dedicated to more recent Japanese art, dating from the late 1800s onward. This is known as Japan's modern period, when some Japanese artists for the very first time in history had the opportunity to study in Europe. These artists blended Japanese and European techniques and subject matter. Some also exhibited their artworks for international audiences at world fairs. If you'd like to know more about how Japanese artists reinterpreted European styles in painting, we encourage you to visit the Kuroda Memorial Hall, which is located right across the street from our campus. Here you'll find works by Kuroda Seiki, one of the first Japanese artists to study abroad in Europe. In this painting of an apprentice Geisha and Kyoto, you can see how the artist painted this very Japanese subject in a style inspired by French Impressionism. But as you'll find out when you visit the Toyokan, our museum has more than just Japanese art. Here you'll find art and artifacts from all over Asia as well as the Middle East. One of the things you might notice when touring this building is the deep influence of Buddhism, which originated in ancient India. As Buddhism spread throughout Asia, different cultures brought their own unique interpretations to the Buddhist figures that they portrayed. Now let's take a look at two Buddhas that were created in regions thousands of miles apart. Here we have stone Buddhas from Gandhara, a region in present-day Pakistan. This area had been part of the Greco-Indian kingdom, and you can see the influence of Greek sculpture in the wavy hair and realistic faces. By contrast, you'll find that Buddhas from China were portrayed in very different styles. So here for example we have a Buddha that was carved from stone in a stylized abstract manner that was popular about 1500 years ago. Compared to the Gandhara sculpture, this Buddha may not seem very realistic, but you could say that it has a unique otherworldly atmosphere to it. As you tour the Toyokan, you'll find that every region in Asia had its own unique forms of artistic expression, which changed over time. A few minutes walk brings us to the Gallery of Horyu-ji Treasures, which is a blend of old and new. From the courtyard we can see a streamlined modern building, but its name and the collection it houses come from Horyu-ji, an ancient Buddhist temple in Nara founded over 1200 years ago. The monks of Horyu-ji gifted many of the temple treasures to the imperial family in 1878, which in turn entrusted them to the Tokyo National Museum. Now as we enter this gallery, we notice that it borrows an idea from traditional Japanese architecture, which is to create a tranquil space that combines the indoors with the outdoors. Inside the exhibition area, a modern setting contrasts with the ancient Buddhist art. This is actually the oldest collection of Buddhist art in Japan, with some of the pieces dating back to the 7th century. To go even further back in time, let's continue on to the Heiseikan building, which is home of our Japanese archaeology gallery. Many of the objects in this gallery date too long before Buddhism was even introduced to Japan, tens of thousands of years before. These were prehistoric times when there was no written history in Japan. Some of the most striking pieces were created between the 12th and 5th century BC, during what is known as the Jōmon period. Now the Jōmon people created some of the oldest pottery in the world, and the most common type of pottery object that they used is now known as the Fukabachi, or the deep vessel. So here we have a few examples of the Fukabachi, which the Jōmon people used in daily life for just about everything, including cooking, storage, rituals, and even for burying the remains of the dead. The intricate patterns and shapes of these vessels are still one of the biggest mysteries in Japanese archaeology, with scholars constantly speculating about what they might mean. A lot of people think that the arts of Japan are characterized by the Zen-like simplicity, but actually a lot of the objects that we have in our galleries have really intricate decoration that rewards close-up viewing. As the final stop on our tour, let's take a look at the museum garden, which is located right behind the Honkan building. Now there are many things in the garden which are very Japanese, but it's not a typical Japanese garden. It's a unique mix of different things that reflect the museum's history. So for example, in addition to native plants like cherry trees and Japanese maples, we have a lot of unusual plants that the museum collected and studied in its early years. That's because originally the museum studied just about everything, not just art and archaeology. The garden is also home to several teahouses built in different architectural styles. Here for example, we have the small and rustic Rokusoan, which was originally located on the grounds of Kofukuji, an ancient Buddhist temple in Nara. The Kujoukan teahouse, which is comparatively large and stately, comes from the Kyoto Imperial Palace. This teahouse and all the other ones were disassembled for transport and rebuilt here in the garden. Now the museum takes care of them for their historic value, and some of them are still used today for museum events and even private tea ceremonies. Nearby you'll also find a bronze pagoda that was commissioned by a shogun, a massive garden lantern created by a ceramic artist from Kyoto, and the tombstones of a samurai family, which are a little bit of a mystery because we don't know why they were left here. So the more you explore our garden, the more you'll learn about the museum's history and the history of Japan. This tour introduced just a small part of our collection, but I hope it gave you an idea of how diverse Japanese art can be. One of the reasons for this diversity was overseas trade and cultural exchange with other places. Just to give two examples, Hokusai's woodblock print, The Great Wave, was colored using an imported synthetic pigment called Prussian Blue. And this dish, which was made in the 1700s, was intended for export to Europe, and its surface was decorated using technology and techniques imported from China. We like to emphasize this international aspect of our collection and hope to see even more international visitors come to our museum. But regardless of whether you can visit us in person or not, you can learn more about our diverse collection through our website and our app, TNM Art Guide. You'll probably find something new and surprising that'll completely change your impression of Japanese art.