Ōhara Museum of Art — Attraction in Kurashiki

The Japanese are often too humble and reserved when it comes to their cultural institutions. There’s more than enough for a movie in the story of the friendship between industrialist, Ohara, and a masterful artist and stylist, Kojima, who bought priceless masterworks directly from European artists to build the first museum of western art in Japan. Rodin’s sculptures were in trade for Japanese woodblock prints. Monet sold his haystacks directly. These stories could be better told. I learned them from a stray book sitting in the gallery.

In wartime before local Japanese soldiers were set to deploy, it is written that many came to the gallery and stood in contemplation of the art. To be at once inspired by western achievement and, by honor, set to fight the descendants of that legacy is a profound contradiction, and I find it enormously to the credit of the museum that they kept the art on view as best they could throughout the war years. It gives some small insight into the Japanese character to not toss the art despite conflict, and especially that the gallery purchased several significant works of American art in the immediate postwar years.

The design of the galleries and the annex are architecturally interesting. It is true that there is some need of small renovations in places but the museum is not at all shabby, as some reviews have implied. This gallery is a must see. One also encounters the work of Kojima, who was a stylistic genius capable of creating art in several European styles he had mastered. He should be famous in the west and it is perhaps only due to his very short life that he is not. One can see why famous French artists were willing to deal with him directly. His talent is hard...

Highly recommended, but note the Annex is still under construction.

2000 yen is too expensive. You can choose to pay 600 for audio guide (option to use their website with your own earpiece, instead of their equipment).

I’m sorry for doing this but go to guide(.)ohara(.)or(.)jp and use the money for the guide in the gift shop instead.

I think the guide is good, but the sequence is all jumbled up and many of the art listed in the audio guide was not on display. A large large majority of the artwork do not have any associated audio guide for it. I think the arrangement of the artwork could be much better and integrate more with the audio guide.

I believe in supporting the gallery as much as possible but paying money to listen to audio recordings that are not even properly sequenced is dumb. It’s not immersive at all. I thought audio guide is supposed to function as if there is a guide following you around and describing the artworks to you. So yeah, just spend more money in their gift shop and support the museum okay :) they have pretty nice postcards.

Recommended to spend 1.5 to 2 hrs to slowly view each artwork and listen to the audio guide. But if you rush, you can probably finish the tour in 1 hr.

The Hiroshima Museum of Art was more...

Good place but I suggest something to modify as below. On the chronological table, why you say ‘Joseon peninsula’ instead of ‘Korea’? ‘Joseon’ is just the name of dynasty of Korea like ‘Edo’. Joseon peninsula sounds to be ignored like just the part of some land, not formal country. In the Asia annex, I couldn’t see any Joseon dynasty displays. Ohara family had passed through the Joseon dynasty period and might not so difficult to gather Korean stuffs even utilizing those colonial era. I know, Kawai kanjiro is also very interested in Korean culture and I could see many Korean things in his museum. Besides if you know the pottery history, you know that we can’t talk Japanese pottery without Korean pottery. entrance fee was quite burden for me, even Now new...