Description of the attraction
Next to Ueno Park is the Tokyo National Museum, the oldest and largest in the country. It was created in 1872, when Emperor Meiji "opened" Japan to the Western world and felt the need for the first public museum.
Today, on its territory of 100 thousand square meters. meters, there are five buildings, in the museum funds there are 120 thousand storage units. It all began with an exhibition in one of the buildings of the Yushima-seido temple with six hundred exhibits. The exhibition was a motley mixture of cultural heritage items, personal belongings of members of the emperor's family, stuffed animals and birds, utensils, flora samples, minerals and more. However, it was a huge success, and as a result, a museum was created under the Ministry of Culture - the prototype of a modern institution.
Today, among the exhibits of the Tokyo National Museum, you can see samples of fine and applied art, calligraphy, weapons and armor, samurai swords, clothes and fabrics, Japanese household items, models of architectural monuments and much more.
The main building of the museum - Honkan - is called the heart of the museum. Here is a gallery of Japanese art. This building was erected in the 30s of the twentieth century and mixed national architectural features and European Art Deco style in its appearance. On the first floor of the gallery, masterpieces from various fields of art are presented, on the second, exhibits are arranged in chronological order, starting with ancient Buddhist wood sculptures. Here you can see multi-meter scrolls with intricate drawings and exquisite calligraphy, screens with plot painting, costumes of kabuki theater actors, samurai armor and much more.
The Heiseikan Corps presents pre-Buddhist art of Japan and archaeological rarities that were created several centuries before the beginning of our era.
The Asian Gallery, or Toyokan, introduces works of Chinese art that served as models for Japanese masters, as well as art from other countries of the East.
The ceremonial building of the museum is an architectural monument of the Western style of the Meiji era, now it serves as an educational center, seminars are held there and a number of scientific societies are working.
Homotsukan is the treasure building of Horyuji Temple in Nara city. Most of the exhibits are located in Nara itself, but the National Museum also has a lot to see - for example, the oversized metal jewelry with engravings, which were used for ceremonial purposes.
