Thursday 21 May
And like that, it went from super hot 28C degrees, to a cold & wet 14C, which is a tad limiting on getting around. To avoid the damp we decided to head to the Museum of Western Art in Ueno.
Ueno / National Museum of Western Art
The museum was a couple of stops from Akihabara and is set in Ueno Park, which we couldn’t really explore due to the weather. Luckily the museum wasn’t too far to walk from the station in the rain.
The museum was designed by the French modernist architect Le Corbusier and it opened in 1959.
The art isn’t bad either.
I’ll spare you the photos of handrails & in-situ concrete; needless to say it is all very good.
The art collection is really good too, it was bequeathed by successful twentieth century Japanese businessman.
Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis
How is your knowledge of Lithuanian artists, if like us, it is probably not particularly comprehensive. This was a special exhibition that was shown along with the work of Japanese artist Hokusai.
Čiurlionis was bit of an overachiever being a painter & composer as well. He only painted for seven years before dying aged 35 from pneumonia in 1911.
Thirty Six Views of Mt Fuji
There was also an exhibition on the famous Japanese ukiyo-e print artist Hokusai’s Thirty Six Views of Mt Fuji, which weirdly actually has forty-six prints.
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Gallery
After leaving the gallery we ventured through the rain to the nearby Metropolitan Art Gallery. This turns out not to be a typical art gallery, but one that provides spaces for travelling shows & community art galleries. Having seen a range of work of wildly varying quality we decided to head back to the hotel.
Steps: 11,682
Walked: 8.2km
MM4.Travel 
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