Art & Nature

While in Hiroshima recently, I visited the Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum and the adjacent Shukkeien Garden.

The urban style art museum is an architecturally beautiful building housing a selection of art works of local masters and arts & crafts of Japan as well special exhibitions. The special exhibition at the time of my visit was "The Moomin's World - from the Tampere Art Museum, Moominvalley"

Shukkeien Garden is a beautiful Japanese garden that incorporates water, greenery, stone and architecture.









The garden "was constructed in 1620 by Soko Ueda (who is known as a famous master of the tea ceremony) as the garden of the villa for the Asano clan. It's name (literally "shrunken-scenery garden") expresses the idea of collecting and miniaturizing many scenic views (mountains, rivers, lakes, teahouses), and according to tradition, the miniature landscape is modeled on Xihu (West Lake), a world-famous scenic spot in China." *

Here's a short video of the gardens:



Whilst in the garden I witnessed a wedding in the open tea house by the lake. The wedding involved a traditional tea ceremony and was eagerly viewed by many on-lookers!











The plum blossoms were in full bloom and made a beautiful picture as did some of the happy admirers!

















There are lots more of my pics of the beautiful Shukkeien Garden here.