The Asian Art Museum in Nice is small, with a rather modest collection. But it is interesting to visit it, if only because the museum building in the Föni Park was erected by the famous Japanese architect Kenzo Tange.
The idea to open a museum of Asian art was once suggested by the mayor of the city Jacques Madsen, a man who wrote in the history of Nice bright and sometimes controversial pages. In any case, the citizens elected him mayor five times. In the nineties, impressed by the work of French sculptor Pierre-Yves Tremoy, who had exhibited extensively in Japan, the mayor decided to create a museum in Nice dedicated to the art of China, Japan, India and Cambodia. A strong, independent and impulsive man, he invited the great Kenzo Tanghe to design the museum.
Tanghe created on the banks of an artificial lake in the Parc de la Feuny a completely unusual, light and bright building, which is itself a work of oriental art. The architect used two basic geometric shapes that have sacred meaning in Japanese tradition: the square (symbol of the earth) and the circle (symbol of the sky). Four white marble cubes surround an equally white marble rotunda topped by a glass pyramid. Each of the cubes contains halls dedicated to the art of one country.
The museum opened in 1998. Today there are about two hundred exhibits of undeniable historical value: a paired statue of gilded white-tailed deer of the XVII-XVIII centuries from Central Tibet (they symbolise the first sermon of the Buddha), a lacquered figure of Amida Nyorai meditating (Japan, Edo era, XVIII century), an amazing funerary statue of a kneeling woman (China, Han era, III century). A Japanese wooden lacquered tea vessel (late XV - early XVI century), a Japanese ceramic horse of the VI century, an Indian cloth of the XVIII century with a hand-painted image of the young god Krishna.
In the museum you can get acquainted not only with static exhibits: in a special pavilion a classical Japanese tea ceremony is regularly organised and presentations of Chinese tea traditions are held. All explanations are given, however, in French.
