Golden Week: Kurashiki

May 22, 2010

Me In Front of Ohara Museum

On May 1st, a Saturday, we visited Kurashiki, a small city a half hour away from Okayama. Fat carp swam in green canals, ivy grew on brick buildings, and vendors spread jewelry over black fabric on the road in the sun. Masako and I went from museum to museum. In the Ohara Museum, the classic Roman build, hid a maze of room, up and down, stuffed with classic Western paintings. Across from that, a very old and traditional house had been bedecked in models of space men and lantern-eyed cats, with a whole dragon’s erupting from the top window. A small private museum housed scarred statues of warriors and crows.

Kojima's Painting

At the Kojima Museum, Masako and I discussed what it meant for art to truly be Japanese. Mr. Kojima was born in the late Meiji era, a time when Japan was borrowing liberally from the West while still trying to maintain their own Japanese soul. One of the main works of Mr. Kojima was a large Impressionistic painting in soft pastels of a Japanese woman in a kimono surrounded by flowers in full bloom. Masako and I both agreed: we didn’t like it. It just didn’t seem Japanese. The flowers exploded every which way, crowding out the empty space, and losing some the simplicity and austerity of the Japanese heart. Another work, done in a realistic “Western style” showed a mother with a child asleep at her breast and a young girl near her sharing a quiet moment in the dark of a water mill. We both loved this painting.


Tea at a Pottery Shop

The day slipped into afternoon. We had frothy green tea and snacks in a pottery shop. Our table was an old stone well with a sheet of glass covering the top. When I looked down, I could see weeds poking out of the cracks and darkness. Around us, sweet-smelling pink orchids brushed against the shelves and shelves of brown bowls and cups. Just above were several beautiful photographs of humming birds, one bird perched on a branch of pink plum blossoms, another hovering above a lucid spear. The shop owner, while whipping up our tea, told us he took the pictures and explained how he arranged the props, lured the birds with honey, and waited hours and hours just to get that one perfect picture.

Shrine at Twilight

The afternoon slipped to twilight. We visited a shrine. At top, a strong wing blew my hair, and we could see all of Kurashiki displayed below us. But I was more fascinated with the way the sinking sun’s golden rays sifted through the purple blossoms dangling from a Wisteria vine.