Visiting a museum in Nagano again

Several days ago, I have been to Mugonkan in Nagano, a museum for those young painters or art majoring young students died during the WWII, which I used to visit 4 years ago as in this post. Through the pandemic, I knew it had been in hard time with much less visitors. I wanted to know how it was getting along. Of course, it has been my hope simply to look the paintings exhibited there again. As always, it was already around noon when I decided to drive there. I arrived there late in the afternoon.

The museum building was standing on a hill overlooking the suburb of Ueda city, one of the major cities in Nagano. Among the trees on the hill, we could see the farms there. There were cherry trees along the entrance road to the building. Flowers were almost fallen on the ground. However, close to the building on the north side, there were a few cherry trees still bearing some flowers. 

The building was smaller than I imagined from the memory of the visit 4 years ago. It was exposed with concrete on the outer as well as inner wall. It looked like a church in countryside. Simple and austere outlook. "Mugon" means no words in Japanese. A gorgeous building won't accord with its intention and aim. 

There were only very few visitors in the museum. Looking around the paintings, a mature lady clerk apologetically asked me if I would go on watching them. Yes, it was almost the time of closing. There were no one in the exhibition area of the building. I apologized her and would go out then. At the exit, where the visitors are to pay the fee, I asked them if there had been so many visitors as in the pre-pandemic era. Of course, the answer from the clerk was no. He was asking me where I came from. Only we were talking in the quiet counter. 

After the last visit, I have donated a bit of money to this museum. I have received a hand written mail of thanks from the director later. I found an art book edited and written by him at the exit place. The title is 100 selections of paintings of life. It is composed of the paintings selected and the explanation by the editor. The editor says these paintings are asking us how we are living at present. 

Each painting won't grab our mind and asks us, as the director says, how we are living our lives. Most painters would not stop painting these works immediately before being recruited to the army. 

There are a lot of paintings of self portrait, beloved ones and family members. This painting showing the painter's family and the painter himself, as the painter's brother told, was not real. The family was too poor to have such a time of sitting together at a room. It was what the painter would like to have with the family members. 

On the way back home, I wondered what it attracted me so much. Their arts produced in extremely inhumane situation are really speechless protests against war. Even without considering of the historical situation, they have left those arts as a result of or a process of self-realization which they fight for within limited time span in their lives. In that respect, we are asked by them as for how we have lived and how we are going to live. 

It was worth visiting there again. Maybe, I will do this trip again and spend a full day to watch all the paintings thoroughly.