If you are a lover of Japan, you want to know where you must go to visit when you make plans to travel there. The Tokyo National Museum is the best place to visit in Japan. Tokyo National Museum, Japan’s oldest and largest, is one of the world’s major art museums. The National Museum is the best place to view fine, complex art from the Far East and learn about Japanese history and culture, as well as all of Asia.
The museum has the most Asian and Japanese art and archeology. 610 of the 110,000 artifacts are internationally significant, and 87 are national treasures. Japan’s first museum, the Taiseiden chamber of the Yushima Seido Buddhist temple, had a Ministry for Public Education permanent exhibition in 1872, founding the museum. After opening, the museum moved to a separate district of Tokyo, but 10 years later, in 1882, it moved to Ueno Park, where it remains.
After multiple name and administrative management changes, the National Museum has been run by an independent organization since 2007. This organization is also in charge of several Japanese museums and creative and historical research projects. The museum is housed in five buildings. A collection of Japanese art, including centuries-old prints, is on display at the largest, Honkan (Gallery). Including centuries-old prints. Constructed by British architect Josiah Conder, it sustained significant damage during the Great Kantō earthquake in 1932 and underwent restoration work in a less Western style by Jin Watanabe from 1932 to 1938.
Yoshiro Taniguchi opened the Toyokan (on your right) in 1968. The Asian collection is there. The Heiseikan’s left side has six rooms with Japanese archeological finds. Behind this building are the Horyu-ji Treasure Gallery and a temporary pavilion. A large Greco-Buddhist collection is also available. As of April 2023, the museum has 120,000 cultural objects, including 89 National Treasures, 319 Horyuji Treasures, and 649 Important Cultural Properties.
By that date, the Japanese government had classified 10,820 crafts and artworks as Important Cultural Properties and 902 National Treasures. About 10% of important cultural properties and 6% of National Treasures are at the museum. The museum also has 2,651 donated cultural items, 262 of which are Important cultural items, and 54 National Treasures. Three thousand cultural pieces are shown at once and rotated every four to eight weeks. The museum also organizes educational programs and researches its collections.
History
Japan’s oldest national museum is in Tokyo. The Ministry of Education’s Museum Department hosted the Yushima Seido or Shoheizaka Exhibition from March 10 to April 30, 1872, the 5th year of the Meiji Era, to display imperial artwork and scientific specimens. The recent Jinshin Survey, which recorded and confirmed imperial, aristocratic, and religious holdings nationwide, validated the objects’ authenticity.
Expanding on an 1871 exhibit at the Tokyo Kaisei School (now the University of Tokyo), the 1872 exhibition was organized by Shigenobu Okuma, Tsunetami Sano, and others to get ready for an international exhibition at the Vienna World’s Fair in 1873 that would celebrate F manufactures and increase exports. Along with the delegation, 24 engineers were sent to the fair to study state-of-the-art Western engineering for application in Japanese industry. For Vienna and a new museum, two representative examples of the most important goods from each province were collected.
The 1872 exhibition, which attracted over 150,000 visitors, was held in the Taiseiden Hall of the ancient Confucian temple at Yushima Seido in Shoheizaka from 9 am to 4 pm. In addition to regional goods, the 1873 Vienna show featured an entire Japanese garden with the shrine, a replica of Tokyo’s imperial temple pagoda, the female golden Shashi from Nagoya Castle, and a papier-maché Kamakura Buddha. Sano wrote 96 books in 16 sections about the fair the following year.
Visiting the Museum
On the second level, the Honkan (Japanese Gallery) contains a particularly chosen collection of art for those with a few hours. Explore the Gallery of Hryū-ji Treasures, Tōyōkan, and Heiseikan for more information. The Gallery displays masks, scrolls, and gilt Buddhas from Hōryū-ji in Nara Prefecture, dating from 607, as well as Asian art, including delicate Chinese ceramics. The Japanese Archaeological Gallery displays pottery, talismans, and daily life items from prehistoric Japan.
Check whether you may enter the generally off-limits garden, which features numerous old teahouses, from mid-March to mid-April and late October to early December. The main building of the museum has a restaurant, café, coffee shop, and souvenir store.
Operating Budget Problems
Japanese cultural budgets are typically low: one-fifth of France’s and one-third of South Korea’s in 2017. The Tokyo National Museum’s yearly budget is ¥2 billion, equivalent to one-seventeenth of the Louvre, one-fifth of the British Museum, and one-third of the National Museum of Korea. Due to rising electricity and other costs, the museum finds it difficult to postpone maintaining its cultural assets and making facility energy payments by 2023. The government rejected a request for a budget increase from the museum. Media coverage of the museum’s state is frequently bemoaned by the director.
Tokyo National Museum: Discover Historical Treasures
The journey through the world’s most famous museums, which includes the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is incomplete without a stop at the Tokyo National Museum. The Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan opened its doors in 1872, a few years before the Metropolitan was constructed. It features over 100,000 exhibits, many of which are national treasures or valuable cultural items (jūyō bunkazai) that date back to ancient times.
The museum’s architecture may be even more remarkable than its displays. Five distinct display buildings were constructed to hold the large collection of artifacts: the Japanese Gallery, the Asian Gallery, the Japanese Archeology and Special Display, the Gallery of Horyuji Treasures, and the Hyokeikan (artifacts gallery). In actuality, a few of the structures are officially recognized as cultural properties of Japan.
The Tokyo National Museum holds a wide range of antiquities, such as 500-year-old samurai armor and Edo-period ukiyo-e woodblock paintings. The museum is accessible to tourists of all ages since it provides information in both Japanese and English. At the gift store, visitors can also buy little replicas of famous exhibitions. Air-conditioned experiences are available for tourists to Ueno, which is home to numerous other great museums in Japan, so they may enjoy their time in Tokyo.
Viewing the Cherry Blossoms at the Tokyo National Museum
This spring, the Tokyo National Museum is hosting a special exhibition that provides a distinctive way to commemorate the start of Sakura season: via the beauty of art. The festival will feature a variety of cherry blossom-themed artwork in many media, like as prints and paintings, lacquerware, textiles, and more. The event costs 1000 yen for adults, and reservations must be made online in advance. The official museum website has information on how to make a reservation here.
GOING AHEAD
It is simple to get to the Tokyo National Museum from several different train stops. The museum is a minute’s walk from Ueno or Uguisudani Station for visitors taking the JR line. The museum is located a five-minute walk from Ueno Station. Adult entrance to the Tokyo National Museum is ¥1000, while children under 18 and those over 70 go in for free. Temporary exhibits are periodically held in the museum for an additional charge. While they may be excellent, they sometimes do not have the same English signage as the rest of the museum.
