TOKYO: Two art collections in Tokyo are lending many of their masterpieces for exhibitions at leading museums in Paris, a rare example of large-scale “exports”. Most facilities in Japan usually borrow famous paintings from overseas for exhibitions.

Musee de l’Orangerie, a centre for impressionist paintings, is now holding an exhibition featuring art works from the collection of the Ishibashi Foundation, taking advantage of the closure of the organisation’s Bridgestone Museum of Art for rebuilding.

Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies” and other impressionist works are a major part of the 76 items on display, in addition to Western-style paintings by Japanese artists, such as Shigeru Aoki’s ‘A Gift of the Sea’ and Takeji Fujishima’s ‘Black Fan’.

“Tokyo-Paris: Masterp­ieces from Bridgestone Museum of Art in Tokyo, Ishibashi Foundation Collection” has attracted more than 350,000 visitors since its opening on April 5, according to the museum. It will run through Aug 21.

Museums in Japan have lent a limited number of items from their collections to foreign counterparts, although there have been a few cases in which many works from one collection were leased to an exhibition abroad. One such example is the Idemitsu Museum of Arts in Tokyo lending about 70 items to the Pinacotheque de Paris for an exhibition on Georges Rouault from 2008 to 2009.

Museums overseas have limited information on what art works Japanese collections have, and curators abroad often request to borrow individual items from Japan in keeping with their specific exhibition plans or research purposes.

When Japanese museums borrow art works from overseas, in contrast, they often find themselves engaging in unfair negotiations and end up bearing the costs for restoration or display cases, according to a senior museum official.

The Bridgestone and Orangerie museums developed ties after they organised a joint exhibition with other facilities in 2012. The Paris facility later asked the Bridgestone museum to loan part of its collection for an exhibition, and the Tokyo side agreed after it was decided that the facility would be rebuilt, making it easier for the museum to lend a large volume of art to Paris.

Orangerie was deeply interested in Japan’s appreciation of Western paintings by artists such as Paul Cezanne and Pablo Picasso and its collection of many impressionist and other masterpieces. The French side was also curious about how these foreign art works influenced painting in Japan.

Although Europeans are not greatly interested in contemporary Western-style paintings drawn in Japan, Orangerie has dedicated the first room of its Ishibashi collection exhibition to such works, along with explanations on how artists in the Asian country were influenced by impressionism.

“Holding this kind of exhibition can strongly influence major museums in Europe and the United States, while also making it easier for us to loan and borrow art works in cooperation with them in the future,” said Yasuhide Shimbata, chief curator at the Bridgestone Museum of Art. “We hope to make this event a pioneering step towards building a more equal relationship [with our US and European counterparts].”

Shimbata also expressed hope that other domestic facilities will follow suit.

Bridge between Japan and France

The Ise Foundation, which has an array of Chinese ceramics collected by Hikonobu Ise, representative director for the organization, is currently loaning about 80 items to Musee Guimet in Paris for an exhibition running through Sept 4. The featured art works include a gourd-shaped vase with flowers and birds in overglaze enamels and gold from the Ming period.

“We loaned them for free with the hope of working as a bridge between Japan and France,” Ise said. “We want to showcase Japan’s sense for art.”

In addition to the ceramic masterpieces, the Guimet museum is also displaying wooden containers and silk wrappers for the ceramics — items not usually highlighted at shows in Japan — as it believes they indicate “Japan’s distinctive aesthetics and sensibility”.

Shuji Takashina, former director general of the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, said it is “highly significant” that Japanese collections are being showcased outside the country.

“As domestic museums have so far had few opportunities for specialised exchanges of information with their counterparts abroad, Japan’s splendid collections are often greeted with surprise by overseas audiences,” said Takashina, an expert on art history. “Having Japanese collections exhibited abroad can provide other countries with a good opportunity to discover the excellent efforts Japan has put into preserving cultural assets.”

If Japanese museums simply continue borrowing art work from overseas, it gives lenders the upper hand, meaning they can demand relatively high fees for loaning out their items, Takashina said.

“Creating more opportunities to borrow and lease art works between museums at home and abroad will help both sides build more equal terms,” he said.

The Japan News

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2017