The Sanritz Hattori Museum of Arts, which celebrates its 30th a nniversary in 2025, was designed to resemble “Clouds rising from the waters of Lake Suw a” , given its location facing Lake Suwa the largest lake in Nagano Prefecture. From a seat in the café upstairs, the height of the visitor’ s line of sight matches the height of the lake water, allowing visitors to view the lake’ s diverse expressions as it spreads out beyond their line of sight. In connection with Lake Suwa, we are pleased to introduce modern and contemporary works from the Ichiro Hattori Collection that symbolically depict lakes, rivers, oceans and water.
Natural scenery has fascinated people since ancient times a nd painters have depicted them in their works. In particular, there are countless works depicting ever-changing water scenes, such as lakesides, rivers and oceans, which have been a favourite subject for many painters. In addition, some of those works depicting in which the painter’ s mental image is entrusted water, are overlaid with various images of the painter. These range from works to a landscape with water, to works in which the painter praises the nature of the watershed area, recalling the bounty of the water.
We hope our visitors enjoy the various waterscenes depicted along with the diverse expressions of Lake Suwa.