House museums #24: Fumio Asakura Museum of Sculpture

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Standing in the garden atop the three-storey Tokyo studio that the sculptor Fumio Asakura (1883-1964), constructed in 1935, it is easy to understand why he chose to spend the rest of his life here. The tranquil Yanaka neighbourhood stretches out all around and, peering over one ledge, I can see the adjoining residence. It is a traditional Japanese home, made of wood, with a fish pond dotted with rocks and plants in the tree-covered courtyard — an oasis of calm in this city of 14mn. I want to hide in a closet and try to stay the night.

The artist designed every detail of the elegant compound, where he lived with his wife, two daughters (who became artists), maids and pupils. “It can be said to be Asakura’s greatest work,” says Taiko Tobari, the chief curator of the Asakura Museum of Sculpture, which the artist’s family opened in 1967, three years after his death aged 81.

Born in the Oita prefecture on the southern Kyushu island, Asakura was 24, a newly minted graduate of the Tokyo University of the Arts, when he moved here in 1907. He began establishing a reputation as “the Rodin of Japan” with his vivid western-style sculptures of ordinary people, celebrated ones (such as the former prime minister Okuma Shigenobu) and cats, his signature subject. (He kept as many as 14 at a time.)

Asakura’s bronze “The Grave Keeper” (1910), depicting an elderly man who worked in the nearby Tennoji Cemetery (where the artist was later buried), stands with an array of statues in the studio. It features 8.5-metre ceilings and an electric lift that descends deep into the floor, which allowed him to work on supersized pieces without climbing a ladder.

It was here that Asakura conducted his sculpture courses, which required students to study gardening up on the roof. “Nature is the master, and it is important for people who create to observe nature carefully,” he said.

Each room contains a new delight. A skylight-crowned space in the house once devoted to growing orchids is now a gallery for rotating exhibitions, a “sunrise room” has walls of crushed red agate and various quarters are punctuated with calligraphy, ink paintings and ceramics that Asakura collected.

A capacious study houses floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that Asakura conceived to withstand an earthquake, having lived through the Great Kanto tragedy in 1923. They hold some 10,000 volumes, many of which belonged to one of his teachers, the art historian Toru Iwamura. The artist borrowed against his house to keep the collection together after Iwamura’s death.

During the second world war, officials seized many of Asakura’s metal sculptures and melted them down for the military machine. It must have been painful. I like to imagine that perhaps he found some solace by the pond, watching the fish or stroking a beloved feline.

The outside world melts away there. “When you visit,” Tobari tells me, “I just want you to feel the air and wind of the season, the fragrance of flowers, the ever-changing light, the expressions and sounds of water.”

taitocity.net/zaidan/english/asakura/

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