This was another great year for art enthusiasts with breadth, depth and an audience for all kinds exhibitions and events.
Blockbusters, whether of traditional Japanese works, Western classics or Modernism, will always be blockbusters here. To name just a small sample of the excellent shows that brought out Japanese masterpieces and brought in tradition-minded masses, there were:Master painter Kano Eitoku at the Kyoto National Museum; Edo Period eccentric Ito Jakuchu in a Kyoto temple; and "Taisho Chic" at the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum.
Bringing their cultural agenda from abroad were the Russians ("Masterpieces of the State Russian Museum"), the Italians ("The Annunciation" by Leonardo Da Vinci), the Dutch ("Milkmaid by Vermeer and Dutch Genre Painting") and the French ("Claude Monet: L'art de Monet et sa Posterite").