Matsu-boshi | Setagaya Art Museum Museum Collection I "Musashino Reconsidered: Musashino through the Eyes of Photographers and the Photographs of Junkichi Mukai"
An introduction to the Setagaya Art Museum exhibition exploring Musashino's landscape through Junkichi Mukai's paintings and various photographers' works.Summary
This article introduces the Setagaya Art Museum collection exhibition, "Musashino Reconsidered: Musashino through the Eyes of Photographers and the Photographs of Junkichi Mukai." The exhibition explores the transformation of the Musashino region over approximately 100 years through the perspectives of painter Junkichi Mukai and four photographers: Kinsuke Shimada, Koji Morooka, Takeo Tanuma, and Osamu Kanemura.
A key focus is on Junkichi Mukai's unique creative process. The exhibition reveals how Mukai used photography not as a final realistic goal, but as a foundational tool—almost like a preliminary sketch—to determine composition before painting. By displaying his paintings alongside corresponding photographs, the exhibition highlights how he distilled and stylized the landscape for his canvases.
The latter part of the exhibition traces the evolution of Musashino from the 1950s to the 2010s. Through the works of Shimada, Morooka, Tanuma, and Kanemura, viewers witness the transition from vast woodlands to agricultural lands, and eventually to contemporary scenes of urban decay, capturing the changing human presence in the region.
(Source：artscape)