Adachi Museum of Art

This art museum is famous for its best gardens in Japan. It's quite large, has many artworks, and is a bit busy if you're there for 2 hours. I think you need 3 hours or more. It was empty on a weekday, but it seems to be crowded on weekends. You can take photos of the Japanese garden, but the air conditioning is on, so you have to look through the large glass windows. The pictures by Yoshio Hayashi, a children's artist famous for "Peek-a-Boo," いないいないばあ are very cute♥️Many people must have grown up reading his picture books. After enjoying the best gardens in Japan, go through the underground passage to the annex. There are many fairly large paintings in the annex. You can sit and look at them. You can rest your tired feet😁Large paintings are amazing in their incredible craftsmanship when you look at them up close or from a distance. There are several gift shops and coffee shops inside. You can spend about 3-4 hours there.

The garden landscape of this art museum has been ranked first in Japan for many years. The distant waterfall and the trees and shrubs are arranged in a unique way. There are many exhibits in the museum, especially the paintings of many Japanese painters from ancient times to the present, which can be said to be of very high standard. It is recommended to make a special trip to visit.

Take at least two hours to visit Adachi Museum, tucked away in a valley, and built with the wealth accrued by a businessman who was born in a village close by, at the shore of Nakaumi. For twenty two years straight, its garden has been voted the most beautiful of Japan by the gardener's journal, and we instantly discover why. Because despite the impressive collection of Japanese paintings and pottery, the garden definitely takes centre stage, unbelievably elegant, balanced, and manicured. No one is allowed to enter besides the invisible army that must be hidden somewhere nearby to take care of everything. It blends in perfectly with the hills in the background, and offers the eye a lovely pallet of shapes and colours to wander between.

Although we were a little skeptical of visiting a garden that you cannot enter, we ended up being very impressed with the views through the large glasses window (and some smaller ones you can open to avoy reflections in your pictures), and there are actually a couple places where you can go outside to view the garden. It was raining the day we visited, but it was still beautiful and in some ways the rain made the rocks even more so. The beautiful rocks, shrubs, and trees are impeccably laid out, and each angle offers a beautiful new view, and although we were worried about the garden looking too artifically perfect, it didn't bother us. Quite stunning and well worth a visit.

Be warned: this is an extremely rigid museum with a very conservative view on art. If you're looking for aesthetic innovation or surprises, you won’t find it here — only tradition, if not kitsch. For some, that might be perfectly fine. But as Baudelaire once wrote, "The unexpected, surprise, astonishment is an essential and characteristic part of beauty." And here, there is zero room for the unexpected. The garden, while undeniably stunning, feels too perfect and overly artificial. You’re not allowed to walk through it or simply relax within it — it's a painting to be admired from afar (mostly from indoor) in a way tightly choreographed by the museum, and not a living space to feel with all your senses, which makes the whole place feel extremely sterile. Lastly, the free shuttle service was surprisingly rude.

Indeed very impressive garden and art piece collections inside, it is all worth the distance to visit here

The gardens are simply beautiful. Such an amazing attention to details. You can watch them from different viewpoints, which offers you complete new sights. The Japanese arts exhibition offers an amazing selection of artworks from the 19th century. One of the must have seen places when you are in Japan.

We visited 3 days ago for 2 hours in the afternoon. The garden is definitely rated number 1 in Japan. I can see why. Multiple waterfalls, and the art exhibit of Yokoyama Taikan was impressive. elevators are provided for the elderly.