The National Museum of Western Art: SF Inspired by the Impressionists from the Musée d'Orsay Collection

*I turned the impressions I received from visiting on the first day into a piece of SF.

It has no relation to reality.

Chapter 1: From the Rain Forecast

Under the cloudy winter sky, the streets of Ueno were damp with a light drizzle.
Ginkgo leaves were crushed underfoot, releasing a faint scent of sulfur.
My son and I walked from Ueno Station to the National Museum of Western Art.
A fine rain was falling on Rodin's "The Gates of Hell" in front of the entrance,
and its blue-black bronze skin was so lustrous I wondered if it was the same color as when it was completed.

Perhaps because of the rain, the line of people was short despite it being the first day.
The moment I stepped into the museum, I felt as if the air had been purified.
Voices and footsteps faded away as if absorbed,
and in their place, I was wrapped in a silence like silk.

I kept a little distance from my son and walked slowly forward.
The deeper I went into the exhibition, the softer the light became.
As if tracing the path of that light, I stopped in front of a painting.

It was Renoir's "Young Girls at the Piano."
That painting, which I had seen so many times in textbooks,
shone today like a "window" into another world.
The air in the room, the light hitting the girls' blonde hair and white dresses, and their reddish cheeks.
The black keys of the piano, the color of the fabric visible behind the curtains—everything felt light and cheerful. The soft afternoon sunlight, the music the girl is playing must be Chopin. Whether sisters or friends, they seem to be saying, "This is wonderful."

I took a deep breath without thinking.
I had the illusion that the air inside the painting
was mingling with the air of reality.
There, even time seemed to stand still.

"I want to paint..."
Those words spilled out from somewhere deep inside me.

Chapter 2: Atelier Fantasy

When I got home, I immediately cleared a corner of my room.
I gave up the small desk, usually buried in computers and documents,
for canvas and paints.

On the shelf by the wall,
some art supplies remained just as I had used them long ago.
I opened the jars of hardened paint one by one,
adding just a little water so they wouldn't dry out.

The actual work is extremely plain.
Washing brushes, laying out cloths, organizing the desk.
Even so, as I proceeded with the preparations,
I could feel the air in the room changing little by little.

The streetlights outside the window
lit up faintly as if to announce the beginning of the night.
Light slid across the wall, casting long shadows on the desk.
Those shadows looked, in some way, like a "flow of water."

I picked up a small brush,
and gently touched the canvas that had nothing on it yet.
The moment I did, what came to mind was—that garden of Monet's.

Chapter 3: Monet's Garden

The water lilies are before blooming. The water's surface, too, is breathing.
The wind passes through without a sound.

This is Monet's garden.

That scene slowly spreads across my mind.

Light descends upon the water lily buds,
and clouds, sky, and trees are reflected on the water's surface.

The silence of the real room
and the silence of that garden begin to overlap.

I did not paint a picture, but
simply moved my brush as if tracing the breath of that light.
The water in the cup on the desk is swaying faintly.
The reflection of the streetlights at night dissolves into those small waves.

My modern room and a distant garden in France.
The boundary between those two spaces
is slowly becoming blurred.

In that gap,
I was experiencing the sensation of “being in reality while transcending it.”

Chapter 4: Memories of Light

As I paint, I think.
Why did Monet paint light so much?
Rather than painting shapes,
I feel as though he was trying to capture the changes in light itself.

Something bordering on obsession.

Perhaps painting light
was a prayer to “stop time.”

The light from the lamp in my room,
flickering on the canvas,
gradually changes its temperature.
The trail of the brush catches that light,
and every time I paint, the world stops for just a brief moment.

Within that stillness,
my own breath dissolves as well.

Chapter 5: The Stoppage of Time

Eventually, as I was painting,
I felt less like I was “looking at light” and more like
“I myself was becoming the light.”

Time slowly unravels,
and the boundary between day and night is lost.
The light from the streetlamps sways in the room like a water surface,
and the shadows on the wall slowly stretch out.

I stop my brush,
and simply stand within that scene.
In the silence,
the light, myself, and the entire room had become one.

The world holds its breath,
and I, too, stop breathing.
In that instant,
I was truly inside “something that is not time.”

Chapter 6: Return

Before I knew it, the hand holding the brush had grown cold.
When I turned off the light,
the room was enveloped in blue darkness.

Outside, the rain has stopped.
In the distance, I heard the sound of car tires sliding on the wet road.
I opened the window a little and inhaled the cold air.

The scent of Monet's garden suddenly returns.
That soft fragrance, a mixture of water, light, and greenery.
But this is a night in Tokyo,
and I am standing in my own room.

Even so, somewhere in my heart, I was certain.
That garden still exists within me.
As long as I paint light, I can return there.

Thinking this,
as I quietly stared at the canvas,
a voice came from behind me.

"Shall we head home now?"

When I turned around,
my son was looking at me.
Before I knew it, the sun had set.
I smiled and nodded.