Description of the attraction
The National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo is one of a kind in all of Japan. The basis of the rich collection of paintings and sculptures was the private collection of the politician and businessman Matsukata Kozdiro, who traveled extensively throughout Europe and bought works of art, mainly in Paris. His collection, located in France, was confiscated during the Second World War, but part of it was later returned to Japan as a sign of the reconciliation of the French and Japanese peoples.
In 1957, construction began on a museum in Ueno Park, the building of which was designed by the famous French architect Le Corbusier. Two years later, the museum was opened, and twenty years later, Le Corbusier's student Kunio Maekawa added an additional room to it.
Today, the museum has more than two thousand exhibits, the authors of which are the most eminent artists and sculptors of Europe and North America, who lived in the period from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century.
The first floor of the museum is dedicated to painters who worked in the 15-18 centuries - including the Italian masters Tintoretto, Veronese, the Flemish Rubens and van Dyck, representatives of the German, French and Spanish schools of painting. The new building of the museum, added in 1979, houses canvases dating from the second half of the 19th century and the 20th century. Among them are paintings by French impressionists (Renoir, Cezanne, van Gogh, Monet, Gauguin), as well as Italian futurists and English Pre-Raphaelites. The exhibition of graphics in the museum is represented by the works of Rembrandt, Goya, Durer and others. In addition, the museum in Tokyo has the most complete collection of works by Rodin, which includes 58 sculptures, including the famous works "The Thinker", "Citizens of Calais" and "The Gates of Hell".
