Plenty to see and admire at the Adachi Museum of Art

The Kikaku Waterfall and other aesthetically pleasing 

garden elements to be found at the Adachi Museum of Art

 

 Prepare to be awestruck when you click on the above photo 

and view an enlarged version of it! :)

 

 Puppet Ponyo says that you also should feel free to click 

on the above photo of her to see a larger version of it (and her)! ;b

Back in 2006, I chanced on an exhibition of works by Yokoyama Taikan when I visited the Fukuoka Art Museum that was by far the most impressive museum exhibition that I viewed that year -- and may well be the most impressive museum exhibition I've seen in Japan to date.  (It's either that or the also pretty breathtaking Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs special exhibition that was on at the Ueno Royal Museum when I visited Tokyo in 2012.)

 

So when I found out that the Adachi Museum of Art is home to the largest -- and, many believe, best -- collection of works by the distinguished Japanese artist (whose real name was Sadai Hidemaro), I had one more big incentive to visit this museological institution located on the outskirts of the small Shimane Prefecture city of Yasugi, whose biggest claim to fame is its breathtakingly beautiful Japanese gardens.   And yup, those of you who know me will be able to easily guess what was Shimane Prefecture's top attraction to my mind!

Thus it was that on the morning of my first full day in Shimane Prefecture, I made my way by train, followed by free shuttle bus, to this museological establishment whose layout makes it so that one spends time mainly feasting one's eyes on its six gardens (which are approximately 165,000 square meters in total) first before venturing upstairs to view the major works of art that can be found inside the museum buildings.

 

Although I had imagined that people would be able to stroll in these amazingly landscaped gardens, the truth of the matter, of course, is that visitors are only allowed to view them from a distance -- and mostly only through the glass of admittedly large windows.  After getting over the disappointment of this discovery, I thanked the stars that at least photographs are allowed of these wondrous gardens -- so I could capture images to remember them by, and share them with others.

 

On the other hand, no photography is allowed of the interior of the museum and the art works on exhibition.  So I'm glad to have found images online of the pieces I saw there that I ended up spending the most time admiring: namely, Yokoyama Taikan's Mount Fuji (1932) -- which actually is a pair of paintings: one of the snow-covered peak of Mount Fuji peaking out from the clouds and another featuring a reddish-orange sun peaking out from another group of clouds floating above the foothills of the sacred mountain -- and the lesser known Shunkyo Yamamoto's Good Omen (1931), whose azure colors (for the water, flowers and roof tiles) I found striking along with the very idea of a mythical landscape as though it was one which humans could readily visit.