I like the long, straight road
that runs from Kagoshima Castle
to the Kagoshima Prefectural Museum.
There are no tall buildings,
so the view is wide open,
and the street trees are pretty.
The small flower beds are well kept, too.
Here and there,
traces of old waterways still remain.
Some of my favorite restaurants and cafes
are around here as well.
If Tenmonkan is the commercial downtown,
this street feels more like
the place where culture and administration gather.
Anyway, it’s the kind of area I like better.
Right in the middle of this street
is the Kagoshima City Museum of Art.
Yes, that’s right.
It’s municipal(市立).
It’s “only”(?) a city museum,
yet its collection list is impressive.
People say Japanese museums collected a lot of art
during the bubble era,
but if a city museum is at this level,
you can’t help but be surprised.
And that makes sense.
Kagoshima Prefecture has no prefectural(県立) art museum,
so this is actually the museum
that represents the prefecture.
:: Learning Mordern Art with Miffy
I’ve said before that on a trip in the hot midsummer,
it’s better to plan indoor stops, right?
That’s also why I went to
the Nagashima Museum and the Kagoshima Aquarium.
As it happened, when I checked the museum’s website,
an exhibition called
“Let’s Go to the Museum! Learning How to Enjoy Modern Art from Dick Bruna“
was on.
Dick Bruna is the Dutch artist
who created Miffy, the famous character.
Escaping the heat indoors,
and seeing a good exhibition at the same time.
Two birds with one stone!
So today’s plan is the Kagoshima City Museum of Art.
If I remember correctly,
this is my second visit.
The first would have been in 2017,
when I did a trip around Kyushu.
It’s been a really long time since I was here.
This special exhibition, “Let’s Go to the Museum!”,
turned the content of Dick Bruna’s picture book
Miffy at the Gallery
into a real exhibition.
For example, they place a figurative still life
next to an abstract still life
and ask, “What’s the difference between these two paintings?”
Or, in front of an abstract composition,
they say, “Try imagining music.”
Then they show works that the Kagoshima City Museum of Art
actually owns as examples.
It was a fun exhibition,
and it seems like it would be very educational
to see with kids.
But,
of course, Miffy and her friends
are all over the exhibition.
When you finish and walk out,
your head is full of cute Miffy’s face
rather than any understanding of contemporary art.
And at the end of the route,
there’s a special Miffy goods shop.
Ah, I ended up buying a lot, too.
This is a very commercial exhibition.
:: The Permanent Collection Is Full of Works by Famous Painters
Of course, this city museum is worth visiting
for the permanent collection alone.
It holds many works
by Kagoshima-born Japanese painters
such as Kuroda Seiki(黒田清輝) and Fujishima Takeji(藤島武二).
On top of that, you can see paintings and sculptures
by famous artists like Monet, Picasso, Kandinsky,
Warhol, Rodin, Cézanne, Matisse, and more.
What’s more, Monet’s Water Lilies
is an early oil painting from the Water Lilies series,
and Cézanne’s Landscape of Northern France
is said to be the first Cézanne
to enter a public museum in Kyushu.
The first sculpture to greet you
when you walk into the museum
is Rodin’s Eustache de Saint Pierre,
a standalone figure of the central character
from The Burghers of Calais.
If, like me, you enjoy stopping at museums while traveling,
I think the Kagoshima City Museum of Art
is a spot you shouldn’t miss in Kagoshima.
There are places nearby, like
the Kagoshima Prefectural Museum
and the Kagoshima Museum of Modern Literature,
but if you want to see art,
this is the place.
After the exhibition,
it’s also nice to have a coffee
at a nearby cafe like Diniz or Luck Apartment.
