Dec 2, 2012 - 1 min read

Sen-oku Hakuko kan

Chinese masterpieces in Japan

By Etsuko Yamada

Community writer

Chinese paintings 1 - A beautiful flower and a bird

Chinese paintings 3 - Water lily and fish

If you are interested in traditional Chinese ink paintings, visit the Sen-oku Hakuko Kan Museum. This is a museum which exhibits and preserves art objects collected by the Sumitomo family. It was opened in 2002 in Roppongi as an annex of a museum in Kyoto. This is a very small museum but there are a lot of famous and excellent masterpieces which are known among serious art lovers. In particular my favorite pieces are Chinese paintings by artists between the 16th and 17th centuries because they show different characteristics from Japanese pieces of the same time.

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By Etsuko Yamada

Community writer

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Anonymous 12 years ago

Surprised they let you take photos inside the exhibition. Usually any worthwhile art the powers that be prohibit photos -- not really sure why. Anyway, I'm a big fan of Chinese sumi art, and have one nice picture myself from a trip to Beijing National Art Gallery 20 years ago. At that time they used to sell off slightly damaged art, to raise funds for the gallery... Not these days, though.

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