Museum Yamato Bunkakan, Art museum in Nara, Japan
Museum Yamato Bunkakan is a private art museum in Nara holding about 2,000 East Asian antiquities, including 4 National Treasures and 31 Important Cultural Properties. Its exhibition hall, designed by architect Isoya Yoshida, has a flat overhanging roof, a white upper band with slit vents, and a screen wall of square grey concrete blocks. It stands on a hill above Sugawara Pond, surrounded by the Bunkaen garden.
The museum was founded and opened in 1960 by Kintetsu Corporation to make a private art collection accessible to the public. Art historian Yukio Yashiro directed the institution in its early years and shaped its direction.
The museum holds two national treasures, including scenes from Nezame Monogatari Emaki, a handscroll depicting Japanese courtly life through detailed illustrations. These works allow visitors to experience the aesthetic values and artistic techniques that shaped a past era.
The museum sits in a quiet neighborhood and is easy to locate by following local signs. Visitors should allow enough time to explore the rotating exhibitions and the surrounding garden.
The collection began as an idea before it had any objects: Kintetsu president Torao Oita founded the institution in 1946 and left the selection entirely to art historian Yukio Yashiro. Yashiro gathered representative works by period and region rather than personal taste, calling it a "museum for beauty". The first registered item is a set of three Tang-dynasty gilt-bronze coins, kept to bring the museum good fortune.
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