Just two blocks from the hanami madness near Nakameguro Station is an oasis of beauty and calm with no crowds, no bullhorns, and no signs forbidding you to stop and pose for a selfie. At the Sato Sakura Museum, the flowers are always at peak bloom, even if you came too early or too late to see perfection at the stretch of the Meguro River that has become a tourist madhouse.
Maybe it’s because I’m so tired of being constantly
bombarded with digital art and AI
that what struck me this year is the delightful realness
of these one-of-a-kind, very physically-present paintings.
At the Sato Sakura, you don’t just experience the very Japanese art of nihonga painting, you can see why people flock to other famous cherry blossom spots around the country. Each painting on exhibit was inspired by a real place, and they have a map, so if you really fall in love with a particular scene, you can go there yourself!
Master nihonga painters and emerging stars are all represented in the museum’s collection, and cherry blossoms feature somewhere in every painting. They range from traditional themes like cherry blossoms by moonlight…
to exuberant modern celebrations of The Pinkness…
And from painters who abstract and expand the nihonga tradition of painting on squares of gold and silver leaf…
to those who use the phenomenon of the annual bloom to convey deeper meaning.
At the Sato Sakura, the paintings are displayed in a much more intimate-feeling setting than most museums, and you can get really close to see the painters’ masterful—and varied!—techniques.
The sheer exuberance of this cascade seen from afar…
induces awe at the painstaking crafting of every single bloom (even the ones fading into the background!) when seen up close.
The bright fluffiness of cascading blooms on this ancient tree…
is painted with a deeply textural technique that conveys its remarkable age, even though it’s wearing its party dress.
The glimmer of pale blossoms at night…
is enhanced by details picked out in powdered gold…
A painting that captures all the intricate brightness of swaying cherry blooms on a spring day…
is actually a master class in abstraction…
and what gives the impression of graphic simplification from a distance…
is revealed to be made up of infinitely fine details up close.
This museum exhibits changing combinations of its collection year-round, celebrating the unique Japanese art of nihonga painting in the most beautiful and varied way possible. No matter what season you come to Japan, or what state the cherry blossoms are in when you get here, you won’t go home disappointed if you stop to enjoy this exquisite collection.
Another thing I love about this museum is that they don’t forbid you from snapping pictures, so you can take the goodness home with you!
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even if you’re stuck at an airport?
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And here are the other places I take my friends when they come to town
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Jonelle Patrick writes novels set in Japan, produces the monthly e-magazine Japanagram, and blogs at Only In Japan and The Tokyo Guide I Wish I’d Had
Jonelle Patrick writes about Japan 