This two-hour tour of Tokyo's National Museum, led by a Japanese art expert or historian, provides a deep dive into Japanese culture and history. Located in the beautiful Ueno Park, the 1872 National Museum houses one of the largest and most impressive collections of objects, sculptures, and paintings related to Asian art and archeology, with a particular focus on Japan. From samurai swords to kimonos, this fine collection tells the story of the history of Japan through its art. Together, we'll explore and discuss a number of the national treasures, touching on some of the 110,000 individual items dating from the earliest years of civilization on the Japanese islands, all the way through to the Edo period and modern day.

While Tokyo National Museum is split into numerous collections, the majority of our focus on this tour will be on the Japanese Gallery. We will use the museum’s Meiji paintings, splendid screens, ancient scrolls, and intricately carved woodblocks to cover themes that range from the importance of visual arts in daily life to tea ceremonies and religious traditions.

Our course through the museums can take many forms, depending on the specific interests of the group: we let the itinerary be shaped by which eras and styles of Japanese art the group is most interested in, as well as the specialization and proclivity of our guide. We'll dig deeply into a number of art forms that are foreign to the west but hold great significance in Japan, in the process developing a context for deeper appreciation.

At the end we'll emerge from our time together with a better understanding of Japanese art and its relation to the larger sphere both of Japanese and Asian culture and history. For a look at Japanese aesthetics in a more contemporary context, try our Introduction to Tokyo tour.