The Meaning of Leonardo's 'Last Supper' Pre- and Post-Restoration Display The High Altar of El Greco A handful of sand... A handful of sand... Masahito Otsuka Advisor to the Otsuka Group Director, Otsuka Museum of Art Let me now to speak about our ancestors. I have personally got to know my great grandfather, but no other ancestors further up in the line, whether males or females. I guess that the same goes for all of you. This is because those ancestor's photographs do not exist. The same can be said about the ancestors of His Majesty the Emperor of Japan such as Emperor Jinmu, Amaterasu Ohmikami and others, Furthermore, at a later period, the same theory applies to celebrities like Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Mouri Motonari etc… Their portraits do exist, though not their photographs. Should they have had their photos printed on Otsuka’s ceramic boards, their true physiognomy would have been likely preserved forever and the history of Japan would have certainly changed as well. It is our obligation to convey Japan’s true face of today to the future generations. Moreover, because as a token of respect to their ancestors, off-springs have a duty to perform some rituals for their ancestors, over and above their obligation to take good care of their parents, we have developed impressive picture (portrait) ceramics both in colors and in black and white. Our success in developing the ceramic art boards and the ceramic portrait boards was coincidental with the 50th anniversary of Otsuka Corporation. On that occasion, my late father’s suggestion was that "We should undertake and execute something that remains for the future generations, not limited to ourselves: something that we may share with all the population". We were, regretfully, unable to fulfill his wish and he passed away at the age of 80. Twenty-five years have elapsed since his death. At the end of World WarII, Otsuka had 17 employees. The total number of our employees now exceeds 23,000 out of which 7,000 employees are from Tokushima Prefecture. They all contributed to the growth of our enterprise. In a show of gratitude to the Prefecture of Tokushima for its long term cooperation, we decided to fulfill my father wish, a wish to which I personally fully agree as well, by building the commemorative monument of our 75th anniversary in Tokushima Prefecture. We have therefore established at this spot, located on the straits of Naruto, The Otsuka Museum of Art, a museum based on the concept that every visitor would be able to enjoy seeing the world’s most famous pictures of Western Art. The construction work was smooth. The number of the exhibited images exceeded 1,000 pictures; all of them are now exhibited, and we were able to open the museum as per our original schedule. Under the leadership of Professor Masanori Aoyagi, the vice-Dean of Tokyo University, and taking into consideration our objective to offer a comprehensive Art education to a variety of students, we picked up the most famous images from ancient and contemporary Western Art and we arranged to have them exhibited in this museum. We will certainly feel very happy if our visitors, having contemplated the images exhibited at our museum, may someday decide, on the occasion of their honeymoon, to travel overseas to see the original picture. They would then remember that they had already seen this or that image at our museum, when they were students, and that they then felt impressed by it. Anyway, because these images are printed on ceramics, they will never fade, while the real original picture may, depending on its surrounding circumstances, possibly suffer some changes. I believe that the colors of the real original picture and those colors of its image on the ceramic boards will, when compared after 50 to 100 years from now, certainly show some differences. We founded this museum of famous Art works on ceramic boards because we are eager to convey the real look of the picture for an unlimited period of time, and in order to preserve it as an heritage for the future generations. After your visit to this museum, please let us be aware of your comments on any irregularities that you may notice so that we may straighten them up. I believe that this museum is our contribution to the public for a 1000 or 2000 years to come. It is also our contribution to the people of Tokushima Prefecture. In brief, a handful of sand has been the key in founding The Otsuka Museum of Art. This is my message. I thank you very much for your support and cooperation. March 1998 (Translated by: Fuado Otsuka) back 2/2 All artwork images (photos) shown here are photographs of artworks displayed at the Otsuka Museum of Art. Copyright (C) 2004 THE OTSUKA MUSEUM OF ART.