"The first work by El Greco to arrive in Japan, 100 years ago, regains its splendor"
This is the headline of an article that was published the other day in the cultural section of the Spain-wide newspaper "ABC". “The Annunciation,” painted by the Greek artist El Greco (1541-1614), who created many masterpieces and spent his final years in the ancient capital of Toledo, Spain, has long fascinated visitors as the iconic image of the Ohara Museum of Art in Kurashiki City, Okayama. And after it was cleaned 66 years ago, on this occasion, a full-scale restoration was performed by Eva Martinez, a painting conservator commissioned by Madrid’s Prado Museum.
In the article, Ms. Martinez commented on the surroundings in which she carried out the restoration work, saying, "The recently completed workshop is small, but is equipped with excellent lighting, ventilation, temperature and humidity control systems, and everything you would need for restoration work, including the full range of equipment and tools." "The work continued for more than three weeks from July 19 to August 9, but before the restoration work started, ultraviolet and reflected infrared photography, pigment stratification, and X-ray fluorescence analysis were carried out." Photo 1 shows Ms. Martinez restoring the painting.
Photo 1
To learn more, you can see the process of this restoration work in detail on YouTube: "El Greco’s ‘The Annunciation’ Restoration Process."
Originally, when this museum opened in 1930, its purpose was to give the Japanese people, especially artists, who found it difficult to travel to Europe, the opportunity to encounter authentic Western masterpieces of the time. Commissioned by the museum's founder, local industrialist Magosaburo Ohara, and largely purchased in Paris during the 1920s by the artist Torajiro Kojima, a close friend of Ohara's, the collection centered on modern Impressionist works by French artists such as Monet, Matisse, and Renoir. Yet among them stood a classical piece by El Greco, painted over 300 years earlier, a lone inclusion that probably explains why this is called a “miracle painting.”
One of the possible reasons for this may be Kojima's 44-day trip to Spain at the end of 1919 and into the New Year 1920. Apparently, when he visited the Prado Museum in Madrid guided by the painter Kunitaro Suda, who was studying in Spain at the time, he was so moved that he stood fixed to the spot in front of El Greco's "The Annunciation". Photo 2 shows the largest (315 cm x 174 cm) of the five El Greco Annunciations currently in the collection of the Prado Museum, which was painted between 1597 and 1600 for the altar in a theological school in Madrid.
Photo 2
Having had such an experience in Spain, and as I wrote in a previous post,* “Then from the 19th to the 20th centuries, the avant-garde artists in Spain and France re-appraised his work, seeing the possibilities for a new art unchained from the academy, and started becoming his enthusiastic supporters. This fad was called the “El Greco Myth”, which was probably one of the reasons why Torajiro Kojima managed to purchase El Greco’s “The Annunciation” at the behest of Magosaburo Ohara, founder of the Ohara Museum of Art.” Perhaps that is the background to the purchase.
* El Greco and Cubism|Susumu Yamada|Knowledge World Network|Activities|Knowledge Capital
https://kc-i.jp/en/activity/kwn/yamada_s/20230928/
So, after seeing news of the restoration of El Greco's work, I have been looking into various things.
At any rate, what has been on my mind is when I will be able to see it again. Well, according to a press release from the Ohara Museum of Art on September 17, it will be temporarily re-exhibited to the public this fall for three months as a preview. The museum will then be closed to the public for a long period (Monday, February 9 to Friday, April 24, 2026), so it will be officially open to the public after that.
Exhibition period: Tuesday, October 21 to Sunday, December 21, 2025
Location: Main Gallery Room 3, Ohara Museum of Art (Kurashiki City, Okayama)
Hours: 9:00 to 17:00 (Last admission 16:30)
El Greco's "The Annunciation" will also be on loan to the Nakanoshima Kosetsu Museum of Art in Osaka, from Tuesday, December 22 to Sunday, February 8. The details of its public opening are still unknown (as of September 24).
Extra: Many artists depict the Annunciation as the moment when the Archangel Gabriel announces news to Mary that she will conceive and give birth to Jesus Christ. However, Italian painter Vittorio Matteo Corcos (1859-1933), shown in Photo 3, painted the scene before the announcement, the moment immediately preceding the Annunciation. Despite having wings, Archangel Gabriel deliberately walked all the way to deliver the message after landing at the garden entrance. Perhaps sensing his presence, Mary, who is believed to be between 12 and 16 years old, sighed, “Ah, you have come after all!” with a resigned acceptance of her fate. At any rate, isn’t that such a quiet scene compared to the lively scenario in El Greco's work I mentioned above, which is accompanied by a heavenly orchestra?
Photo 3
