Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on April 2010

The Dead Toreador, 1864, oil on canvas, 75.9 x 153.3cm
Courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Widener Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Tokyo loves museums! No, this isn’t some advertorial PR guff, but a rather bemusing observation—bemusing because visiting an exhibition here usually sets you back more than ¥1,000, and the quality on display often fails to match what’s on offer elsewhere in the world. Yet Tokyoites are so into art that the metropolis claimed four of the top ten most-visited exhibitions in the world last year, according to trade publication The Art Newspaper.

This craving for culture means that Tokyo always has room for yet another art venue. Following the opening of the Mori Art Museum in 2003 and the National Art Center Tokyo in 2007, the newest kid on the block is the Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, which opened this April—except the “new kid” has the venerable look of a stately old man, being housed in a brick-for-brick reconstruction of the Mitsubishi Ichigokan.

Émile Zola, 1868, oil on canvas, 171.1 x 105.8cm
RMN (Musée d’Orsay)/Herve Lewandowski/Distributed by DNPartcom. Musée d’Orsay

This was an elegant Victorian building designed by the English architect Josiah Conder in the revived Queen Anne style that was then popular. From 1894 to its demolition in 1968, it stood near Tokyo Station, serving as an office for the banking division of the Mitsubishi Corporation. By recreating this Meiji period landmark, Mitsubishi both celebrates its history and provides a setting that complements its largely late-19th-century art collection.

For its first show, the museum opts for an extensive exhibition of the French painter Édouard Manet sourced from overseas institutions. A pivotal figure in 19th-century art, Manet (1832–83) was closely associated with the Impressionists without actually being one. Trained in the academic style that favored “realist” depictions of historical and mythological subjects, Manet nevertheless turned his brush to contemporary urban subject matter. It’s for this reason that he is often regarded as the first modernist.

But the exhibition is quite weak at showing this decisive move towards modernity. There are few good works from the 1860s, when it actually happened, with perhaps the best example being The Street Singer (1862), a large, melancholic canvas. With a limited number of top-class oil paintings on offer, the curators bravely try to eke out the exhibition with lesser artworks (studies, lithographs, etc.) as well as photographs and what appear to be a few randomly selected paintings by other artists of the time, including a Gauguin.

The Street Singer, 1862, oil on canvas, 171.1 x 105.8cm
Photograph ©Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bequest of Sarah Choate Sears in memory of her husband, Joshua Montgomery, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Where the show is more successful is in giving us a flavor of Manet’s obsession with Spanish painting, a style characterized by sharply contrasted light and shade, lack of transitional tones, and black backgrounds. The influence of painters like Velasquez, Goya and Jusepe de Ribera is everywhere in Manet’s murky canvases. The exhibition includes some Spanish-themed works, including paintings of dancers and bullfights, the most impressive being The Dead Toreador (1864).

Another strong point of the exhibition is the portraits. The Mitsubishi has been lucky enough to score Manet’s famous Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets (1872), which shows the great female Impressionist painter (and Manet’s sister-in-law) dressed in mourning following the death of her father.

Another excellent portrait is Émile Zola (1868), which depicts the famous realist novelist who strongly supported Manet when he was attacked for “pornography” following the exhibition of his painting Olympia at the 1865 Paris Salon. It shows the great writer in his study surrounded by books, some Japanese artworks, and an etching of Olympia similar to some of the examples that can be found elsewhere in the exhibition.

This is an interesting show and an astounding new museum, but I couldn’t help feeling that the somber mood created by Manet’s art didn’t quite suit the cozy, maze-like spaces of the new old building.

Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo

Manet and Modern Paris. Painting. Until July 25, ¥500 (elem, MS)/¥1,000 (HS, univ)/¥1,500 (adult). 2-6-2 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku. Open Wed-Fri 10am-8pm, Tue, Sat &Sun/hols 10am-6pm, closed Mon. Nearest stn: Nijubashimae or Marunouchi. www.mimt.jp