Latest Events in Hakone(May Updated)

Holding at Lake Ashi in Hakone, Kanagawa Prefecture, the Hakone-en Summer Night Festival is a picturesque fireworks display that lights up the summer nights. In 2025, the event will take place over two days, on August 2 (Saturday) and 3 (Sunday), with 2,500 fireworks fired each day from the lake. The glow of stars and water on the calm waters of Lake Ashi echoes through the mountains as sound and light create an overwhelming sense of reality. Starting this year, paid viewing seats (2,000 yen) have also been set up on the beach by the lake, allowing visitors to enjoy an even more magnificent view. There is also a large grassy area where you can spread out a picnic blanket and relax while watching the celebrations, and food stalls and food trucks are lined up to enjoy the festival-like atmosphere.

Oka Nobutaka and Maki Susumu, who both became apprentices of Kawabata Ryushi in their teens and trained at Seiryusha, were bound by a deep bond of affection, but each went their own way after becoming independent. This exhibition will feature a selection of works from the museum's collection by these two artists who are key players in contemporary Japanese painting. The exhibition will focus on Oka's elegant flower and bird paintings, which make use of the stylized beauty of Japanese painting, and Maki's masterpieces, which depict the beauty of impermanence using the four seasons of Japan as their subject. This is a special exhibition unique to our museum, which houses a comprehensive collection of works by both artists.

From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, René Lalique (1860-1945) was known outside of France as an original jewelry maker. However, his work was extremely broad, leaving behind a large variety of "clothing accessories" such as decorative collars and handbags. At the 1900 Paris World's Fair, held ahead of the new century, Lalique served as general manager of the jewelry department. Later in life, he had an unexpected connection with Jeanne Paquin (1869-1936), a top designer who held that position in the fashion department. The women's fashion led by Paquin and others at the time was dresses with curved lines that harmonized with the popular decorative style "Art Nouveau." Many women worked hard to create a slim waist that was suitable for the flowing silhouette. It was in the 1920s, after World War I (1914-1918), that women were liberated from corsets that were so tight that they were damaging their health. At the same time, when the trend for decoration shifted to the linear "Art Deco" style, Lalique had already made a major shift to mass production of glass products, mainly for interior design. The custom-made clothing that he concentrated on in the early days of his debut is a perfect match for the Art Nouveau style of dress, which sought elegance with a slim waist. The Lalique Museum Hakone, celebrating its 20th anniversary, is holding a special exhibition that will highlight Lalique's works from its collection from a fashion perspective and introduce the items in the form of an illustrated book. In addition, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Rene Lalique's death, a dress with a silhouette from the early 20th century, when he was active, has been recreated (photo right). As a highlight of the exhibition, we will be trying to wear Lalique's works for the first time, approaching the reality of Lalique in fashion. Please take a look at 18 carefully selected items from the museum that will help you understand Art Nouveau clothing, including anecdotes about the history of clothing, as if you were flipping through an illustrated book.

Approximately 100 pieces will be on display, ranging from Kin Shiotani's early works to new works created specifically for this exhibition, to thoroughly introduce his artistic career spanning 30 years. The paintings are difficult to interpret just by looking at them, and the long titles are hard to imagine just by reading them. Please enjoy looking at both the paintings and the titles and letting your imagination run wild, asking yourself questions like "Is this what it means?", "I see!", and "That's so true!"

The exhibition will feature 11 three-dimensional works and 18 two-dimensional works, including new acquisitions, centered around Inoue Bukichi's "My Sky Hole 94-6 Forest Labyrinth," which can be said to be the signature piece of the museum, in the main gallery, which has remained in the same condition since the museum first opened.

Hayami Gyoshu (1894-1935) was active in Tokyo from the end of the Meiji period to the beginning of the Showa period, and left a major mark on modern Japanese painting. His excellent works and his pure, spiritually-minded approach to painting earned him the respect of other artists of the time, and Tanaka Isson (1908-1977), who was 14 years his junior, was also one of those who respected Gyoshu. Gyoshu's "Magnolia (Spring Garden Beauty)" and Isson's "White Flowers and Red Jade," both of which are housed in our museum, are considered representative works of their respective artists. They depict the natural world with a dignified style, and convey that they both aimed to reach a higher level of artistic expression, transcending differences in era, environment, materials and techniques. To commemorate the 90th anniversary of Gyoshu's death in 2025, four of Gyoshu's works and seven of Isson's works will be exhibited together, centered around their respective masterpieces, Gyoshu's "Magnolia (Spring Garden Beauty)" and Isson's "White Flowers and Red Jade," both of which are housed in the museum (two of Isson's works are in private collections, the others in the museum's collection). In addition, works by Kano Hogai, Hashimoto Gaho, Tomioka Tessai, Ohashi Suiseki, Yokoyama Taikan, Shimomura Kanzan, Hishida Shunso, Kawai Gyokudō, Uemura Shōen, Kaburagi Kiyokata, Kobayashi Kokei, Maeda Seison, Okumura Togyu, Tsuchida Bakusen, Murakami Kagaku, Higashiyama Kaii, Kayama Matazo and others will be on display, allowing visitors to enjoy a total of 50 exquisite Japanese paintings spanning the early Meiji, Taisho, and late Showa periods.

At the end of the 18th century, the Republic of Venice, which had boasted a thousand years of glory, came to an end. Losing state protection, the Venetian glass industry suffered a long period of hardship, but as times and people's interests changed, it began to attract attention again, and learning opportunities were opened to young craftsmen, and it became popular at world expositions and exhibitions. This exhibition will introduce works from the 19th century, when Venetian glass overcame hardship and was revived. Enjoy the colorful and vibrant modern Venetian glass, including vessels that incorporate ancient techniques and designs with a new interpretation, and works that attempt to reproduce ancient glass.

Ogasawara treasures each unique encounter with a landscape, and his landscape paintings, created using the techniques of Japanese painting and based on meticulous sketches, are bright and clear in style with a gold base, and while their expression is simple, they are imbued with elegance. This exhibition will feature works depicting the natural scenery of rural areas around Japan, such as mountain valleys covered in blossoms including cherry blossoms, and waterside scenes of clear streams.

Due to the diversification and personalization of contemporary society, color has come to play an increasingly important role not only in fashion and interior design but also in fields such as the environment, health, and beauty. Meanwhile, as smartphones, an ever present part of our lives, now have the ability to reproduce over one billion colors, we have become unknowingly engulfed in a vast world of color. In this exhibition, focusing on color in art from the modern to the contemporary era, we reconsider the role of color while touching on subjects such as the relationship between color theory and the materials used to express color. This reinterpretation of the history of color in modern and contemporary art is based primarily on paintings, sculptures, and installations by creators such as the Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painters of the 19thcentury who deftly manipulated tubes of oil paint to reconstruct a visual world with a wide range of colors; the Fauvists and abstract painters of the 20th century; and contemporary artists who altered the viewer’s physical sensations through the effects of color.

The "Yudachi Kagura" has been handed down since 1776. Although Yudachi (spraying boiling water from a soup pot to purify impurities) is performed all over the country, it is a rare traditional practice to have a lion perform Yudachi. In order to pray for no disease, no disaster, family safety, and a good harvest, the lion stirs the hot water with the fruit of the mountain white bamboo, cleanses the hot water bamboo branches, and then sprays the hot water on the worshippers to drive away bad diseases. While being selected as an intangible folk cultural property selected by the country, it has also been designated as an important intangible cultural property designated by Kanagawa Prefecture, the "Yudachi Lion Dance".