Art Museum of Animals. Japanese Plastic Expressions of Creature in 20th Century

1 April - 7 May 1995

Hours: 9:30a.m.- 5:00 p.m.

Admission: charged

We, the human beings, used to live very closely with animals. 0n one hand, we had the feeling of reverence for animals, who have quite different appearances and abilities from us, but on the other hand, we hunted animals and raised cows, horses, sheep, etc. However, in the Modern Age, we began to have a wrong conviction that we could rule and control animals owing to the development of science and technology and to the view that human beings had priorities over animals. We took advantage of us huge number of animals for the benefit of the human society and forgot the reverence that our ancestors had for them. The recent fashion of having pet animals causes doubt if such a condition gives animals a true happiness or not. Add to that, around the world today, the very serious problems have been raised to our environment by the destruction of nature on a large scale. As already pointed out, for the most part, it has resulted from the human arrogance toward nature including animals. Now we must have the clear consciousness that it is time that we should rethink the relationship between animals or nature and human beings.

In the field of plastic arts, animals have provided artists with the very important themes all around the world through all ages. All kinds of animals appear in works of plastic arts, including pet animals and domestic animals familiar to us, foreign animals we have few chances to see, and nonexistent animals in our fantasy. A lot of excellent works of art represented animals as supernatural and sacred beings with symbolical and religious meanings.

In Japan, after the latter half of the eighteenth century, when the rational way of thinking of the modern western society began to be introduced, some of the painters began to depict animals realistically observing them with keen eyes and with strong curiosities. Since that time animals have been represented without religious and symbolic meaning.

After the Meiji era, under the strong influence of the Western thought on art, which rapidly permeated Japan, Japanese painters and sculptors used both their powers of observation and their imaginations vigorously and presented their variant works of art, which show whatever relationship with animals ; for example, the microcosm centering around animals, animals as an irony or a metaphor of the human society, the friendship between human beings and animals, etc. Not a few number of contemporary artists produce their works with the inspirations from appearances, expressions, and behaviors of animals. In these works, we see a rich variety of viewpoints, with which artists observe animals, human beings, and nature as a total. That is, their affection for nature and animals, the world of imagination inspired by the appearances of animals, and their consciousness to the various problems surrounding us and our society seen through animals. These attitudes of artists toward animals seem to give us a lot of suggestions when we think over the contemporary problems concerning the relationship between man and nature.

This exhibition, which include 85 paintings and sculptures by the modern and contemporary Japanese artists, is organized to show how the modern and contemporary art1ists see and represent animals and to rethink over the relationship between human beings and animals or nature.

We would like to express our deep gratitude to the museums and the collectors, who have kindly lent us the works for display, and to the artists and all the parties, who have offered their cooperation.

Animal Sculpture of the 20th Century　2001