At the heart of Kurashiki’s Bikan Historical Area is the Ohara Museum of Art.
There are many ways to enjoy it, but one experience worth trying when visiting with others is “dialogue-based art appreciation.”
The museum offers a wide range of programs, from those for preschool children to programs for businesses.
The person who has shaped the history of dialogue-based art appreciation at the Ohara Museum of Art is Chief Curator Yanagisawa Hideyuki.
Why did the Ohara Museum of Art begin offering dialogue-based art appreciation, and how did it take root as a culture?
We spoke with Yanagisawa about what he felt during the formative years of the initiative and how he feels about it today.
The information presented was current when this article was published in May 2023. Please note that it may differ from current information.
About the Ohara Museum of Art
Established in 1930, the Ohara Museum of Art is Japan’s first private museum devoted primarily to Western art.
It is divided into the Main Building, the Annex, and the Crafts and Oriental Art Gallery, and its collection comprises approximately 3,000 works.
It displays many celebrated masterpieces that are highly regarded today, including El Greco’s The Annunciation and Claude Monet’s Water Lilies.
At the time it was established, there were reportedly very few opportunities to see original Western paintings in Japan.
The industrialist Ohara Magosaburo supported the passionate wish of the painter Kojima Torajiro to “make outstanding works available to see in Japan, too.”
The Western paintings Kojima collected with Magosaburo’s support form the core of the Ohara Museum of Art’s collection.
For details such as opening hours, please check the Ohara Museum of Art website.
What is “dialogue-based art appreciation” at the Ohara Museum of Art?
The Ohara Museum of Art can be visited by groups as well as individuals (reservations required).
One offering that has attracted particular attention is “dialogue-based art appreciation.”
In most cases, the proper etiquette at an art museum is to view the works quietly. But, as the name suggests, dialogue-based art appreciation involves “viewing art through conversation.”
It is a program unlike individual viewing, in which participants share what they felt as they looked at the artwork.
It is offered at many museums, not just the Ohara Museum of Art.
The Ohara Museum of Art began offering dialogue-based art appreciation in earnest in 2002.
It began when Yanagisawa Hideyuki, now the Ohara Museum of Art’s Chief Curator, joined the museum as a curator.
Since then, Yanagisawa has developed training for dialogue-based art appreciation and established systems for running it within the museum.
The programs began with offerings for preschool children and school groups, and are now also offered as training programs for businesses.
Over the course of about 20 years, the purposes for participating and the range of audiences have expanded considerably.
How did dialogue-based art appreciation take root at the Ohara Museum of Art and develop to the point where it can be called a culture?
We asked Yanagisawa about the journey to the present and his thoughts on it.
Even when viewing the same work, people see and feel things differently
To begin with, what is dialogue-based art appreciation?
Yanagisawa (honorific omitted)
Dialogue-based art appreciation is viewing artworks through conversation between a facilitator—who may be a museum staff member or volunteer—and visitors, or among visitors themselves.
Rather than speaking to visitors one-way, as in an artwork explanation, participants look at the work and discuss what they feel as they view it.
The program was originally developed at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
It has been carefully researched and practiced as a way of viewing art that breaks down barriers of race, values, and other differences.
It was introduced to Japan in the latter half of the 1980s.
It was first practiced in 1993.
In the early 1990s, curators from institutions such as Art Tower Mito and Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art visited the Museum of Modern Art, New York, leading to a rapid increase in opportunities to practice it in Japan as well.
How does viewing art through conversation differ from viewing it on your own?
Yanagisawa
One of the best things about dialogue-based art appreciation is that you can realize that “everyone sees and feels things differently.”
For example, imagine several people viewing a work that depicts a house.
If you ask, “What stood out to you?” you’ll get a variety of answers, such as the color of the house, its size, or the people who live in it.
Then you might discover things like, “Even though we’re looking at the same work, they were looking at something completely different from me,” or, “I didn’t even notice that was in the picture!”
It offers a different kind of enjoyment from viewing art alone.
Also, learning about other people’s perspectives often changes how you see and feel about a work.
Participants often tell us that this change is mysterious and fascinating.
Training “facilitators” to lead dialogue-based art appreciation
Could you tell us how you came to be involved in dialogue-based art appreciation?
Yanagisawa
It began when I attended a lecture by Noriko Fuku, former director of the Art Communication Research Center at Kyoto University of the Arts, who helped spread dialogue-based art appreciation in Japan.
At the lecture, I learned the fundamentals of what dialogue-based art appreciation is.
As I analyzed what I had learned in my own way, I began to think about how to put it into practice at a museum myself.
In 1996, when I was a curator at the Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art, I planned and conducted dialogue-based art appreciation for the first time.
The first thing I did was provide training in dialogue-based art appreciation for art teachers at junior high schools in the Okayama City area, volunteers at the Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art, and students at Okayama University.
They are generally called “facilitators.”
After training the facilitators, we held a dialogue-based art appreciation session for around 100 junior high school students.
The teachers who took part at the time still pass on their dialogue-based art appreciation skills, and the volunteers have formed a team and lead sessions at various museums.
Creating a system that allowed dialogue-based art appreciation to continue was a valuable experience for me.
Then, in 2002, I became a curator at the Ohara Museum of Art.
Drawing on my experience, I worked to make dialogue-based art appreciation possible at the Ohara Museum of Art as well.
Building a store of dialogue-based art appreciation skills at the Ohara Museum of Art
So you were the one who spread dialogue-based art appreciation at the Ohara Museum of Art?
Yanagisawa
I may not have spread it so much as created a system for it.
But actually, something like dialogue-based art appreciation existed even before 2002.
The Ohara Museum of Art had a program for preschool children even before I started working there.
As staff considered “how to help children enjoy looking at artworks,” something like dialogue-based art appreciation arose naturally.
However, the staff at the time didn’t know that what they were doing was dialogue-based art appreciation.
So when I became a curator at the Ohara Museum of Art, I created a training program to teach staff “what dialogue-based art appreciation is” and “what approach to take,” and began running it at the museum.
What makes dialogue-based art appreciation at the Ohara Museum of Art distinctive?
Yanagisawa
The Ohara Museum of Art’s strength is that its training program continues to produce new facilitators every year.
It is important for facilitators and experts to travel between museums and lead dialogue-based art appreciation sessions, but I also think it is meaningful to build up dialogue-based art appreciation skills within a museum.
There are also opportunities for members of the public to take part in facilitator training.
Before the Ohara Museum of Art’s annual event, “Children’s Art Museum,” we hold training that members of the public can join.
Some people take part in the training every year.
Veterans offer advice to newcomers, without me having to say much.
I think this cycle is wonderful. It’s a flow that has emerged precisely because we’ve built up these skills.
Dialogue-based art appreciation focuses on “information gathered from the artwork itself”
What do you consider important when training facilitators for dialogic viewing?
Yanagisawa
There is a fundamental idea behind dialogic viewing that I always make sure to convey.
It is that “artworks are diverse bodies of information.”
There are two kinds of information: information that can be gathered from the artwork itself and information that cannot be gathered from the artwork.
For example, you can learn or imagine things by looking at an artwork, such as “what colors were used,” “what kind of brushwork was used,” and “what is depicted.”
But you cannot tell the artist’s name or the year the artist was born just by looking at the artwork.
Dialogic viewing deals with “information that can be gathered from the artwork itself.”
This idea is especially important, and I always make sure to convey it.
When I went to an art museum, perhaps I was only concerned with information that I couldn’t learn by looking at the artworks…
Yanagisawa
If the question is, “Which of the artworks here do you like?” the answer isn’t about whether you know or understand something—it’s how you feel, right?
In dialogic viewing, understanding the artwork is not the goal.
What matters is expanding visitors’ imaginations and drawing out what they feel.
That is the facilitator’s role.
In facilitator training, we consider different ways of looking at artworks and develop each person’s own ability to interpret artworks.
Then they gain experience as facilitators.
As they get more practice and work with a variety of visitors, they develop the skills to draw information out of artworks.
I believe dialogic viewing is a skill.
At an Art Museum, You Don’t Have to Find the Best Answer
I heard that the Ohara Museum of Art has been offering dialogic viewing as a corporate training program for the past few years.
Yanagisawa
With dialogic viewing, you discover that people see and feel different things even when looking at the same artwork.
That is true not only in art museums, but in everyday life as well.
In business, for example, even when several people are working on the same project, they may each place importance on different things.
Dialogic viewing lets you experience just how much individuals’ perspectives and feelings can differ.
I think simply being aware of these differences can change your mindset and communication at work.
Dialogic viewing also welcomes all feelings positively and uses the question “Why did you come to that conclusion?” to draw out the person’s way of thinking.
This is an approach that can help create a psychologically safe workplace, something that has been receiving attention in business in recent years.
When psychological safety is maintained, people naturally listen to others’ feelings and can speak honestly about their own.
I think dialogic viewing helps people understand how important creating psychological safety is to improving team performance.
“Psychological safety” refers to a state in which people in an organization feel safe expressing their thoughts and feelings to anyone.
Recruit Management Solutions: What Is Psychological Safety?
Why do you think art museums are well suited to fostering psychological safety and helping people understand differences in how they approach things?
Yanagisawa
I think it has to do with the idea that “artworks are diverse bodies of information.”
For example, during dialogic viewing, you look at an artwork from up close and from far away, putting what you feel into words.
When making decisions as a company, too, you gather information, compare and consider it, and revisit the essentials as you build up evidence.
In business, people naturally take a broad view and also think about things from very close up.
An art museum, with its many artworks that are diverse bodies of information, is a unique place to develop the ability to understand things from a variety of perspectives.
It is also good to become comfortable with the idea that there is no single absolute right answer, that there can be multiple right answers, and that instead of dismissing what you don’t understand, you can leave it unresolved.
I was really struck by something an employee of a startup who attended one of our sessions said: “So here, we don’t have to find the best answer.”
Perhaps an art museum is a place where we can learn that it is okay to be uncertain, and that the ability to sit with uncertainty is important.
Taking Dialogic Viewing Skills into the Future
How can companies take part in the Ohara Museum of Art’s dialogic viewing program?
Yanagisawa
Please contact the Ohara Museum of Art directly by phone or email.
The program was developed specifically for companies.
We offer a variety of activities, such as viewing several artworks at once and finding the odd one out, or imagining how an artwork was created and expressing it through gestures.
We hope you’ll come and experience how your feelings differ from those of your colleagues as you expand your imagination through art.
What are your goals for dialogic viewing going forward?
Yanagisawa
For the Ohara Museum of Art, I hope we can continue to train facilitators and keep the program going for as long as possible.
Ideally, people other than me would also be able to lead the training.
Dialogic viewing is one way of appreciating art, and I hope to pass on its skills as a way to nurture good viewers.
From the Writer
No matter how close people are, no two people think exactly alike.
And what you believe is the right answer may not be the right answer for someone else.
We tend to forget these obvious truths in our everyday lives.
After interviewing Yanagisawa, I felt that dialogic viewing can be an opportunity to notice what we take for granted.
Experience dialogic viewing with people you know well.
That alone could be a great opportunity to reconnect with yourself and with others.
Why not enjoy an experience that’s different from viewing art on your own at the Ohara Museum of Art?
Articles About the Ohara Museum of Art
Ohara Museum of Art Information
| Name | Ohara Museum of Art |
|---|---|
| Address | 1-1-15 Chuo, Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture |
| Contact | 086-422-0005 |
| Parking | None |
| Opening hours | 【December–February】 9:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. (last admission: 2:30 p.m.) 【March–November】 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. (last admission: 4:30 p.m.) |
| Closed | Mondays Open when a public holiday or substitute holiday falls on a Monday Closed during winter; occasional temporary closures |
| Admission (tax included) | 【General admission】 Adults: ¥2,000 High school, junior high school, and elementary school students (under 18): ¥500 |
| Payment methods |
|
| Reservations | Available No reservation required for individuals |
| Smoking | Entire facility is non-smoking |
| Restrooms | Western-style toilets, accessible toilets |
| Childcare facilities | Nursing room, diaper-changing table, stroller rental Nursing room is in the Craft Museum Diaper-changing tables are on the second floor of the Main Building and in the Craft Museum |
| Accessibility | Wheelchair rental, ramps, accessible toilets, elevator |
| Website | Ohara Museum of Art Official Website |
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