ADACHI MUSEUM OF ART
The Dry Landscape Garden
Adachi Museum of Art was founded in November 1970 and has its core the life- long collection of Zenko Adachi, an entrepreneur who was born in Yasugi City, Shimane Prefecture. The museum is noted for its magnificent Japanese gardens and its superb collection of modern Japanese paintings. The paintings, including 120 works by Taikan Yokoyama, are especially noteworthy for their excellent quality as well as sheer number. We also house lacquerware, pictures for children, wood carvings and other art works.
In 2010, the Annex opened as a space to house and exhibit contemporary Japanese paintings. We exhibit excellent masterpieces by painters who are representatives of the today's Japanese art world, including young painters. And in 2020, we opened the Rosanjin Hall, which exclusively showcases works by Kitaoji Rosanjin, who exerted his abilities for pottery, calligraphy, lacquerware and other art areas. As of today, our collection includes about 2,000 works in total. We change exhibits, in each exhibition room, in accordance with the changing seasons and exhibition specific themes, taking the seasonal garden views in account.
The museum’s gardens include the Moss Garden, the Dry Landscape Garden, the Pond Garden, and the White Gravel and Pine Garden. Each has its own attraction, and their faces change with the seasons. The harmony between such gardens and the surrounding mountains is a “living Japanese painting” of the highest quality.
The founder, Adachi Zenko, put his heart and soul into gardening based on his belief that a Japanese garden is also a living painting, until his death in 1990 at the age of 91. The gardeners who inherited his dedication lead the rest of the museum’s staff in their daily maintenance and care of the gardens.
“Sukiya Living Magazine: Journal of Japanese Gardening”, an American magazine specializing Japanese gardens, has ranked our gardens as the top of the Japanese gardens sequentially since 2003. They are also listed as a “three-star site” in the Michelin Green Guide Japan.
We believe that you will fully enjoy the delightful world enfolded by the fine gardens and master paintings. We hope you will have the calm, relaxed time here.
Main works
Yokoyama Taikan "Autumn Leaves"（1931）
Yokoyama Taikan was born in Ibaraki Prefecture. After studying Japanese painting at the Tokyo Fine Art School, he helped establish the Japan Art Institute. He dedicated himself to the creation of new Japanese painting techniques. Making full use of his English skills, Taikan actively held exhibitions in many foreign countries, in India, Europe and the United States. Through the experience, in 1914, he renewed the Japan Art Institute. He received the first Order of Culture, and was a leader of the Japanese art world for a long time.
Among Taikan’s art, this is among his most gorgeous. He colored most of the picture ultramarine in order to express the flow, on which he added white-gold "ripples" to express the clear and cold nature of autumn. In the left screen, he arranged ruby-red leaves over almost the whole area. In the right screen, a wagtail flying away shows the solitude of the remote valley. This is not just a decorative painting. Taikan successfully kept an intense, but elegant, atmosphere on the whole of the frame. This is the world of Taikan, and viewers can admire his rich humanity and individuality.
Yokoyama Taikan "Autumn Leaves"（1931）
Kitaoji Rosanjin "Jar in Overglaze Enamel and Gold"（c.1940）
Kitaoji Rosanjin was born in Kyoto Prefecture. His skill in Japanese calligraphy and letter curving was apparent at an early age, and his interests later spread to cooking and antiques. He opened his own antique shop, “Taiga-do Art Shop.” He also used its second floor as a Japanese membership restaurant “Bishoku Club,” which was the predecessor of “Hoshigaoka Saryo,” a restaurant he established at another site in 1925. He aimed for the comprehensive aesthetics surrounding cooking, and produced dishes for meals, and flower vases and paintings that are suited for the dining room. Thus, he established his own aesthetic world of art.
Also called gold brocaded porcelain, this style is named after what looks like gold brocade laid upon the object, an effect achieved through designs in gold leaf and powder on the object being fired. This is one of Rosanjin's most dazzling and gorgeous works, and no similar vase exists.
Kitaoji Rosanjin "Jar in Overglaze Enamel and Gold"（c.1940）
- Yokoyama Taikan "Selflessness"（1897）
- Takeuchi Seiho "After a Shower"（1928）
- Uemura Shoen "Daughter Miyuki"（1914）
- Hishida Shunso "Cat and Plum Blossoms"（1906）
- Kawai Gyokudo "Moonlit Evening"（1913）
- Kawabata Ryushi "Passion" （1934）
- Hashimoto Kansetsu "Dogs from Europe"（1941）
- Sakakibara Shiho "Unripe Plum Blossoms"（1918）
