Fukuda Art Museum
The Unobstructed Peaceful View on Togetsukyo Bridge
Fukuda Art Museum is a Japanese painting museum located in Arashiyama, in the west of Kyoto. Temporary exhibitions display an artworks collection spanning the Edo period to the early 20th century, in a contemporary building inspired from Kyoto’s traditional townhouses. It also has an incredible view on Katsura River and Togetsukyo bridge.
Inaugurated in October 2019, Fukuda Art Museum was founded by Yoshitaka Fukuda, the Kyoto-born owner of Aiful, a consumer finance company, as a token of gratitude for his home-city. The contemporary construction displays his personal collection of about 2,000 Japanese paintings, that are showcased in turn and curated so as to "impress anyone, regardless of their art knowledge."
Contemporary architecture mediating past and future
The museum's other ambition is to establish a "100 years museum," by defining the codes of the museum of the future. Architect Koichi Yasuda, who also designed Hakone’s POLA Museum of Art, found inspiration in the machiya, Kyoto’s town houses. The 2 levels of the construction are enclosed in glass walls, to emphasize the coexistence of art and nature, and sheltered under a large traditional roof.
The L-shaped building is placed at the corner of a square plot and opens on a contemporary Japanese garden. The shallow rectangular ponds display a checkerboard pattern, from which the sprouting grass are reminding of rice fields. Evergreen pine trees and deciduous trees that turn red in autumn 🍁 are growing in the background, along an unobstructed view on the Katsura (Oi) river and Togetsukyo Bridge.
Traditional figurative painting
The small 400sqm museum has 3 exhibition rooms. One of them, spreading lengthwise, recreates the atmosphere of the old kura warehouses. Lighting is dimmed to semi-darkness so as to display the artworks while preserving them.
Thematic exhibitions are renewed 3 to 4 times a year and highlight paintings of animals or female beauties (bijinga), as well as artworks inspired by poetry. Exhibitions are often organized in collaboration with the neighboring Saga Arashiyama Museum of Arts & Culture.
The collection includes various types of paintings: kakemono vertical scrolls, folding screens or etchings, made by major Japanese artists between the 17th and the early 20th century: Ito Jakuchu, Maruyama Okyo, Hokusai or Takehisa Yumeji.
Fukuda Art Museum is the ideal place to admire masterpieces of traditional Japanese painting in a privileged location. While its admission fee is quite expensive considering its size, it helps preserve a peaceful atmosphere, all the more so that access to the souvenir shop and the cafe with the beautiful view on Togetsukyo Bridge is restricted to paying visitors.