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The museum was established in 1959 on the basis of Matsukata
collection. Kojiro Matsukata (1865-1950), the politician and
wealthy businessman, invested his own money in the acquisition
of several thousands examples of western painting, sculpture
and decorative art. He strongly believed that the future of
Japan depends on its ability to westernize. He traveled a
lot around Europe and bought works of art, mainly in Paris
- the Mecca of modern art. Matsukata hoped to create an art
museum in Tokyo where western culture and art would be accessible
to all. But financial problems of 1927 prevented him from
realizing this plan. His business underwent hard times and
he was forced to sell a remarkable part of his precious collection.
The rest was stored in warehouses in London and Paris. But
misfortunes never come along and twelve years later the warehouse
in London was burnt to the ground. All that left from the
once rich collection was the collection stored in Paris. During
World War II the French Government laid claims on the collection
and only in 1959 it was handed back to Japan as part of the
San Francisco Peace Treaty.
The main building of the museum was designed by the French
architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965). Le Corbusier established
his name as an architect in 1927 when he won the competition
for the creation of the League of Nations building in Geneva.
For his work the extensive use of pillars, free standing flat
surfaces and roof-top gardens are typical. In addition to
those elements, the building of the National Museum of Western
Art features a winding path staircase that goes through the
center of the galleries, thus conecting them in whole.
Nowadays the museum has 12 galleries where over two thousands
exhibits are disposed. Eleven galleries house the permanent
exhibits while the Special Exhibition Gallery is meant for
temporary exhibitions. The core of the museum collection is
Western painting from the late Medieval period up to the early
20th century and French Modern Sculpture. The pride of the
museum's sculpure collection is 58 sculptures by Auguste Rodin,
three of which - "The Thinker", "The Gates
of Hell", and "The Burghers of Calais" - are
displayed in the museum forecourt. They have been fitted with
special devices to counteract the eathquakes.
The collection of paintings embraces the period of about four
centieries, starting with the 14th century icons and ending
with the experiments of Jackson Pollock. The musem features
the works of such Old Masters as Rubens and Mariotto Di Nardo.
The masters of the 19-20th centuries represented in the museum
are Claude Monet, Eugene Delacroex, Jean-Baptiste Camille
Corot, Gustave Courbet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro,
Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso and many others.
The collection of Monet's work, formed by Matsukata, is rather
extensive and features some real mesterpieces: "On the
boat" (1887), "Peony Garden" (1887), "Morning
on the Seine" (1898) and "Water Lilies" (1916).
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