Hakone Open-Air Museum

Listen for a moment. Under the birdsong there is a soft hiss of wind through pine needles, and somewhere below, the clack of a small mountain train. The air smells faintly of sulphur from the hot springs in these hills. Gravel crunches under your shoes. Then you look up, and a bronze figure stands on the lawn ahead of you, green with weather, with the mountains rising behind it.

You are at the Hakone Open-Air Museum, in the hills above Odawara. Most visitors come up from Odawara on the Hakone Tozan Railway. It is a slow mountain line that climbs the valley in a series of switchbacks. At each one the train stops, the driver walks to the other end, and the train carries on in the opposite direction. The station just below the museum is called Chokoku-no-Mori. That name means the Forest of Sculptures.

The museum opened in 1969. It was the first open-air art museum in Japan. The idea was simple and quite bold for its time. Here, sculpture would not sit in quiet white rooms. Instead, it would stand outside in rain, snow, fog and sunshine, beside real trees and in front of real mountains. The landscape is part of the exhibition. When the weather changes, the art in front of you changes with it.

So take a slow look around. The grounds spread across lawns, slopes and terraces. Paths curve between hedges and open onto wide views of the surrounding peaks. Some works stand alone in empty grass. Others appear suddenly at a bend in the path, half hidden by trees. The designers wanted you to wander and discover things, not to follow one straight line. There is no wrong order here.

The collection covers modern and contemporary sculpture from Europe and Japan. You will find classic figures in bronze and stone next to bright abstract forms in painted steel. One name appears again and again: Henry Moore, the British sculptor known for large reclining figures with smooth hollows and openings. The museum holds one of the larger groups of his work anywhere. Walk all the way around one of his pieces. The shape changes completely from every side.

Near the Moore works you may also meet Auguste Rodin, the French sculptor of the late nineteenth century. His figure of the writer Honoré de Balzac stands wrapped in a heavy robe, with his head thrown back. When the statue first appeared, many people in Paris disliked it. They found it rough and strange. Today it is seen as a turning point, the moment sculpture moved away from polished likeness and toward raw expression.

Now for a detail that many visitors miss. Look for a tall cylindrical tower covered in coloured glass. This is the Symphonic Sculpture, made by the French stained-glass artist Gabriel Loire. From outside, it looks like a solid column. But you can walk inside. A spiral staircase winds up through the centre, and the walls around you glow with deep reds, blues and golds. At the top there is a viewing platform over the whole park.

Take your time on the way up. On a sunny day, light pours through the glass and spreads colour across the steps and across your hands. On a cloudy day, the colours turn darker and softer, like a church window at evening. The staircase is narrow, so let people pass when you need to. The view from the top shows the layout of the gardens, the paths you came along, and the green ridges of Hakone beyond.

Indoors, the museum has a second surprise. The Picasso Pavilion holds a large collection of work by Pablo Picasso. Many people expect paintings, but the focus here is different. You will see ceramics, plates and bowls that he painted with faces, birds and bulls. There are also prints, drawings and a few pieces of jewellery and sculpture. These works show the playful, hands-on side of an artist best known for his paintings.

This museum also welcomes children in an unusual way. Some sculptures here are made to be climbed into. One is a huge structure of brightly coloured crocheted netting, made by the Japanese textile artist Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam. Children crawl, bounce and tumble through it, inside a wooden shelter. Even if you are not climbing, stand and watch for a minute. It is a rare place where touching the art is the whole point.

And here is one more thing you do not find in most art museums: a foot bath. Hakone is a hot-spring town, and the museum brings that tradition into its grounds. Warm spring water runs into a shallow pool where visitors sit side by side, shoes off, feet in the water. It is a very Japanese pause in the middle of a gallery visit. Many people bring a small towel for exactly this reason.

The seasons shape this place strongly. In spring, fresh leaves soften the hillsides. In summer, the lawns turn deep green and the bronze figures look dark against them. In autumn, the maples around the grounds turn red and orange. In winter, there can be frost or even snow on the shoulders of the statues. Each visit feels different, because the setting around the art is always moving through the year.

Before you leave, find a quiet bench and sit for a few minutes. Notice the sound of the wind again, and the far rattle of the mountain train. Look at the nearest sculpture and at the hills behind it, both in the same frame. Here, art and landscape are not separate things. As you walk back down toward the station, keep watching the trees. You may still catch one last figure standing quietly among them.